Comparing Two Texts
Compare and evaluate how "voice" as a literary device is used in different types of texts, such as poetry, novels and film, to evoke emotional responses.
A comparison question is not two answers stapled together. The marks are in the comparing itself, and almost every lost mark comes from the same structural mistake.
Builds onYr 9 · The Literature Essay Answer
Method
Never write text A, then text B
Handling one text and then the other is the single commonest failure. Build each paragraph around a point of comparison, with both texts inside it.
Differences are usually richer than similarities
Two texts doing the same thing differently gives you more to analyse than two doing it the same way.
Compare the how, not the what
Both texts being about grief is a starting point, not an answer. How each one handles grief is the essay.
Give both texts equal weight
If one gets three paragraphs and the other gets four lines, the comparison has not happened.
Worked example
e.g. Compare how the two texts present the relationship between a parent and a child. (12)
- Find three points of comparison before you write. These become your paragraphs.Distance · voice · what is left unsaid.
- Write a position that covers both texts.Both present the relationship through silence, but one treats silence as protection and the other as failure.
- Paragraph one — point of comparison, then text A, then text B, then the comparison sentence.The comparison sentence is where the mark is.
- Use comparative connectives to signal the move.Similarly · by contrast · whereas · where the first text… the second…
- Paragraph two — a point where the texts genuinely diverge.Difference gives you more to say than agreement.
- Paragraph three — the highest-value comparison, usually about technique or voice.How each writer positions the reader.
- Conclude by saying which text does it more effectively, and why.An evaluation, not a summary of the similarities.
Practice
Structure first, then the comparing itself.
1
An essay covers text A in paragraphs one to three and text B in four to six. Why does this cost marks?
AnswerNo comparison has taken place — two separate essays sit side by side. The reader is left to do the comparing. Build each paragraph around a shared point with both texts inside it.
2
Turn this into a comparison: Both texts are about loss.
AnswerBoth texts treat loss as something unspoken, but where the first uses silence to protect the child, the second uses it to avoid the parent's own grief.
3
Why are differences often more productive than similarities?
AnswerSimilarity ends the discussion; difference opens it. Two writers making opposite choices about the same material lets you analyse why each chose as they did.
4
The question says compare, and you find one text far stronger. Should you say so?
AnswerYes, in the conclusion, with reasons. An evaluative judgement is credited — but only after both texts have been given a fair hearing.