comparison-contrast

Read the passages that follow and analyze them for contrast and comparison. Highlight the signal
words, and write an outline or draw a map for each passage.


Karaoke and pachinko are both very popular leisure activities in Japan, and both require some skill,
but there the similarity ends. The former is done for pleasure and brings no profit to the participants, but
the latter is a form of gambling. Karaoke has grown popular in many foreign countries, but non-Japanese
show little interest in pachinko. And finally, whereas karaoke is a social activity that people normally
enjoy in groups, the pachinko player enjoys his or her passion alone. Indeed, the fact that it is a solitary
pursuit may be one of its attractions.
(Effective Writing: From the Paragraph Up. Kenkyusha. pp. 30-31)


Professionals who have played the game in both countries say that American baseball and Japanese
baseball are quite different. One of the first differences that gaijin players notice in Japan is the constant
noise from the crowd. During a game in the United States, there are many quiet moments, but in Japan the
cheering never seems to stop. On the field there are differences, too. Japanese players bunt more often.
American pitchers throw more fast balls. The strike zone is different. American players in Japan almost
all comment that in the U.S. pros save their energy for the game itself, while in Japan players wear
themselves out in practice before the game. A final difference not obvious to most observers may be the
attitude of the players: Hideo Nomo, who joined the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1995 and has since played
for other major-league teams, comments that American baseball is fun. Japanese baseball, he seems to
imply, is work.
(Effective Writing: From the Paragraph Up. Kenkyusha. pp. 36-37)


Punctuation marks are like traffic signs which the writer provides for her readers. When there is no
punctuation, the reader should move ahead at a steady speed. Commas, semi-colons, and periods tell the
reader when to slow down and when to stop. Other punctuation marks, such as dashes, give hints about
approaching turns and changes of direction. Good punctuation guides the reader smoothly to his
destination. On the other hand, misplacement or omission of helpful punctuation marks can cause the
reader to have to back up and start reading all over again, or, in the worst case, to get completely lost.
(Effective Writing: From the Paragraph Up. Kenkyusha. p. 37)


Sweden and Norway are two countries with both similarities and differences. The most obvious
similarity is in their location. The two countries are both located in Scandinavia, and they are next to each
other. Another obvious similarity is in their languages. Swedish is spoken in Sweden and Norwegian in
Norway, but the languages are almost the same. If you can understand one, you can understand the other.
A third similarity is in their governments. Both countries have a king and a prime minister.
There are also some differences between the two countries. First, Sweden is a larger country, with a
larger population. Sweden has almost forty percent more land area and twice as many people, with a
population of more than eight million. Second, the economies of the two countries are also different.
Norways economy is more dependent on fishing and farming than Swedens, which emphasizes
manufacturing.
(Kenji Kitao. 1994. Developing Reading Strategies. Eichosha. p. 21)


Japan and the United States: Different but Alike
The culture of a place is an integral part of its society whether that place is a remote Indian village in
Brazil or a highly industrialized city in Western Europe. The culture of Japan fascinates people in the
United States because, at first glance, it seems so different. Everything that characterizes the United
Statesnewness, racial heterogeneity, vast territory, informality, and an ethic of individualismis absent
in Japan. There, one finds an ancient and homogeneous society, an ethic that emphasizes the importance
of groups, and a tradition of formal behavior governing every aspect of daily living, from drinking tea to
saying hello. On the surface at least, U.S. and Japanese societies seem totally opposite.
One obvious difference is the people. Japan is a homogenous society of one nationality and a few
underrepresented minority groups, such as the ethnic Chinese and Koreans. All areas of government and
society are controlled by the Japanese majority. In contrast, although the United States is a country with
originally European roots, its liberal immigration policies have resulted in its becoming a heterogeneous
society of many ethnicitiesEuropeans, Africans, Asians, and Latinos. All are represented in all areas of
U.S. society, including business, education, and politics.
Other areas of difference between Japan and the United States involve issues of group interaction and
sense of space. Whereas people in the United States pride themselves on individualism and informality,
Japanese value groups and formality. People in the United States admire and reward a person who rises
above the crowd; in contrast, a Japanese proverb says, The nail that sticks up gets hammered down. In
addition, while North Americans sense of size and scale developed out of the vastness of the continent,
Japanese genius lies in the diminutive and miniature. For example, the United States builds airplanes,
while Japan produces transistors.
In spite of these differences, these two apparently opposite cultures share several important
experiences.
Both, for example, have transplanted cultures. Each nation has a mother societyChina for Japan
and Great Britain for the United Statesthat has influenced the daughter in countless ways: in language,
religion, art, literature, social customs, and ways of thinking. Japan, of course, has had more time than the
United States to work out its unique interpretation of the older Chinese culture, but both countries reflect
their cultural ancestry.
Both societies, moreover, have developed the art of business and commerce, of buying and selling, of
advertising and mass producing, to the highest levels. Few sights are more reassuring to people from the
United States than the tens of thousands of busy stores in Japan, especially the beautiful, well-stocked
department stores. To U.S. eyes, they seem just like Macys or Neiman Marcus at home. In addition, both
Japan and the United States are consumer societies. The people of both countries love to shop and are
enthusiastic consumers of convenience products and fast foods. Vending machines selling everything
from fresh flowers to hot coffee are as popular in Japan as they are in the United States, and fast-food
noodle shops are as common in Japan as McDonalds restaurants are in the United States.
A final similarity is that both Japanese and people in the United States have always emphasized the
importance of work, and both are paying penalties for their commitment to it: increasing stress and
weakening family bonds. People in the United States, especially those in business and in the professions,
regularly put in twelve or more hours a day at their jobs, just as many Japanese executives do. Also, while
the normal Japanese workweek is six days, many people in the United States who want to get ahead
voluntarily work on Saturday and/or Sunday in addition to their normal five-day workweek.
Japan and the United States: different, yet alike. Although the two societies differ in many areas such
as racial heterogeneity versus racial homogeneity, individualism versus group cooperation, and informal
versus formal forms of behavior, they share more than one common experience. Furthermore, their
differences probably contribute as much as their similarities toward the mutual interest the two countries
have in each other. It will be interesting to see where this reciprocal fascination leads in the future.
(Oshima and Hogue. 2006. Writing Academic English. Longman. pp. 112-113)


An arithmetic sequence has numbers arranged so that each number in the list has the same difference
between it and the one before. For instance, an arithmetic sequence can be 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, and the
difference between any number and the previous number is three. Another arithmetic sequence can be 2, 6,
10, 14, 18, and the difference between any two adjoining numbers is four. On the other hand, a
geometric sequence has numbers arranged so that each number in the list is multiplied by a constant value
to get the next number in the list. For instance, a geometric sequence can be 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, where the
constant multiple is two. Another geometric sequence can be 4, 16, 64, 256, 1024, where the constant
multiple is four.
(Sharon Sorenson. 2000. Websters New World Student Writing Handbook. fourth edition. Wiley
Publishing. p.105)


Scientists use the word theory differently from the way it is used in everyday speech. In everyday speech
a theory is the same as a hypothesisa supposition that has not been verified. A scientific theory, on the
other hand, is a synthesis of a large body of information that encompasses well-tested and verified
hypotheses about certain aspects of the natural world. For example, physicists speak of atomic theory;
biologists speak of cell theory.
(Paul Hewitt. 2002. Conceptual Physics. p. 3)


Science and technology are different. Science is a method of answering theoretical questions;
technology is a method of solving practical problems. Science has to do with discovering facts and
relationships between observable phenomena in nature and with establishing theories that organize and
make sense of these facts and relationships. Technology has to do with tools, techniques, and procedures
for putting the findings of science to use.
Science and technology are human enterprises, but in different ways. In deciding what problems to
work on, scientists are guided by their own interests, and sometimes by a desire to help other people or to
serve their nation. Most often scientists are driven primarily by curiosity, the simple urge to know. They
pursue knowledge, insofar as is possible, that is free of current fashion, beliefs, and value judgments.
What scientists discover may shock or anger some people, as did Darwins theory of evolution. But
science by itself does not intrude on human lifetechnology does. Once developed, it can hardly be
ignored. Technologists specifically set out to design, create, or build something for the use and enjoyment
of humans, often for the betterment of human life. Yet some technology can have adverse side effects or
create other problems that must be solved. Although technology derives from science, it has to be judged
on how it affects human life.
(Paul Hewitt. 2002. Conceptual Physics. p. 5)


In everyday language, we can use the words speed and velocity interchangeably. In physics, we make a
distinction between the two. Very simply, the difference is that velocity is speed in a given direction.
When we say a car travels at 60 km/h, we are specifying its speed. But if we say a car moves at 60 km/h
to the north, we are specifying its velocity. Speed is a description of how fast an object moves; velocity is
how fast and in what direction it moves. We win see in the next section that there are good reasons for the
distinction between speed and velocity.
(Paul Hewitt. 2002. Conceptual Physics. p. 13)


If either the speed or the direction (or both) is changing, then the velocity is changing. Constant speed
and constant velocity are not the same. A body may move at constant speed along a curved path, for
example, but it does not move with constant velocity, because its direction is changing every instant.
(Paul Hewitt. 2002. Conceptual Physics. p. 14)


A quantity that requires both magnitude and direction for a complete description is a vector quantity.
Recall from the previous chapter that velocity differs from speed in that velocity includes direction in its
description. Velocity is a vector quantity, as is acceleration. In later chapters well see that other quantities,
such as force, are also vector quantities. For now well focus on the vector nature of velocity.
Many quantities in physics, such as mass, volume, and time, are completely specified by their
magnitude onlythey do not have direction. A quantity that is completely described by magnitude only is
a scalar quantity. Scalars can be added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided like ordinary numbers.
(Paul Hewitt. 2002. Conceptual Physics. pp. 28-29)


Mass is often confused with weight. We say a heavy object contains a lot of matter. We often
determine the amount of matter in an object by measuring its gravitational attraction to Earth. However,
mass is more fundamental than weight. Mass is a measure of the amount of material in an object and
depends only on the number of and kind of atoms that compose it. Weight, on the other hand, is a measure
of the gravitational force acting on the object. Weight depends on an objects location.
The amount of material in a particular stone is the same whether the stone is located on Earth, on the
moon, or in outer space. Hence, the stones mass is the same in all of these locations. This could be
demonstrated by shaking the stone back and forth in these three locations. The same force would be
required to shake the stone with the same rhythm whether the stone was on Earth, on the moon, or in a
force-free region of outer space. The stones inertia, or mass, is solely a property of the stone and not its
location.
But the weight of the stone would be very different on Earth and on the moon, and still different in
outer space. On the surface of the moon, the stone would have only one-sixth the weight it has on Earth.
This is because the force of gravity on the moon is only one-sixth as strong as it is on Earth. If the stone
were in a gravity-free region of space, its weight would be zero. Its mass, on the other hand, would not be
zero. Mass is different from weight.
We can define mass and weight as follows:

Mass is the quantity of matter in an object. More specifically, mass is a measure of the inertia
that an object exhibits in response to any effort made to start it, stop it, or otherwise change its
state of motion.

Weight is the force of gravity on an object.

While mass and weight are not the same, they are proportional to each other in a given place. Objects
with great mass have great weight; objects with little mass have little weight. In the same location, twice
the mass weighs twice as much. Mass and weight are proportional to each other, but they are not equal to
each other. Remember that mass has to do with the amount of matter in the object, while weight has to do
with how strongly that matter is attracted by gravity.
(Paul Hewitt. 2002. Conceptual Physics. p. 49)


A proof is an essay of sorts. It is a set of carefully crafted directions, which, when followed, should
leave the reader absolutely convinced of the truth of the proposition in question. To achieve this, the steps
in a proof must follow logically from previous steps or be justified by some other agreed-upon set of facts.
In addition to being valid, these steps must also fit coherently together to form a cogent argument.
The one proof we have seen at this point (to Theorem 1.1.1) uses an indirect strategy called proof by
contradiction. This powerful technique will be employed a number of times in our upcoming work.
Nevertheless, most proofs are direct. (It also bears mentioning that using an indirect proof when a direct
proof is available is generally considered bad manners.) A direct proof begins from some valid statement,
most often taken from the theorems hypothesis, and then proceeds through rigorously logical deductions
to a demonstration of the theorems conclusion. As we saw in Theorem 1.1.1, an indirect proof always
begins by negating what it is we would like to prove. This is not always as easy to do as it may sound.
The argument then proceeds until (hopefully) a logical contradiction with some other accepted fact is
uncovered. Many times, this accepted fact is part of the hypothesis of the theorem.
(Stephen Abbott. 2001. Understanding Analysis. Springer. pp. 8-9)