I have to write a short essay for this topic:
Compare and contrast the various sources of energy.
This is what I have, but the only problem is I don't think this is comparing and contrasting. I'm just giving the facts out. Can someone please help me by letting me know how I can compare all of these?:
Modern industrial cities use energy for mostly everything in their everyday life. The main energy source is non-renewable fossil fuels. Nearly all modern developed countries depend heavily on fossil fuels. Most have to import much of what they use because few of these nations have sufficient supplies to meet their needs. Oil and natural gas reserves are spread unevenly around the world; over half of the world’s oil supply is located in Southwest Asia. At the current rate of use, the world’s oil is expected to run out in less than a century and that is why today people are searching for new energy sources.
12 answers
Another source of energy is nuclear energy, which is produced by fission. This source has many questions and concerns and it also uses uranium, which is a limited and non-renewable source.
The last type of energy, solar energy, is energy produced by the sun. Systems to gather and store the sun’s energy have been used for years, but generating electricity from solar energy has been hard. All the same, solar radiation is the best renewable energy source.
For instance, we use a lot of oil and gas because it's efficient and relatively cheap. However, the supplies are limited and we will run out some day. In addition, we have to depend on foreign countries, some of which have onerous political systems for much of our oil and gas.
-MC
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Whenever you are writing a comparison/contrast paper (paragraph, essay, research paper), you need to plan it out very carefully on paper first.
Try this:
1. Write all the information about one of your topics on one page.
2. Write all the information about the other topic on another page.
3. Then put them together in this order:
1. Intro
2. All about topic A
~~~2A. detail 1
~~~2B. detail 2
~~~2C. detail 3
~~~2D. detail 4
~~~2E. detail 5
3. All about topic B
~~~3A. detail 1
~~~3B. detail 2
~~~3C. detail 3
~~~3D. detail 4
~~~3E. detail 5
4. Concl.
The number of details for each topic will vary depending on your main points. I would include comparisons (how they are similar) in the introduction and conclusion, but sections 2 and 3 and all those details will be stating and explaining how they are different.
There are two recognized patterns for writing comparison/contrast papers. One is casually referred to as "zig-zag,” but can be very confusing for the reader if you don’t use transitions effectively. The other is topic-by-topic (which is what I've outlined above) and is much easier for the reader to follow.
See http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/acadwrite/comparcontrast.html for further help with comparison/contrast writing.
Once you have organized your information, please repost if you’d like feedback from someone here.
-MC
-MC
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