In an informational selection, writers often explain events, ideas, discoveries, or facts in a cause/effect pattern. Things don't just happen without a reason or cause. A cause is a starter or a reason. Some events, facts, situations, or ideas cause others things to happen. The result, or reason, or consequence of a cause is an effect.

How to identify cause and effect:

• Try an "As a result of" statement with events in the text.
  • As a result of the torrential rainfall, the ground around the trees was soaked, and trees toppled over.
  • As a result of the oil spill in the Pacific, marine life washed up on the beach covered in oil and unable to survive.
• Create a chart as you read to help understand and analyze the connections what you read.
  • In "Dogs and People," an article you have read, a cause & effect chart might look like this:

Compare means to find similarities, or things that are alike, or the same. You might be looking for similarities in two or more events, facts or ideas.

Contrast means to find differences, or things that are not alike. You might be looking for differences in two or more events, facts or ideas.

Remember this (if it helps):

• Compare. A pair (different spelling) goes together. To compare, look for pairs of things that go together, that are alike or similar.
• Contrast. Different.
  • Black and white are contrasting colors.
  • Circle and square are contrasting shapes.
  • Joy and sorrow are contrasting emotions.
  • Gigantic and tiny are contrasting sizes.

	contrasting colors
	contrasting shapes
	contrasting emotions
	contrasting size
	compare sports
	compare shapes
	compare animals
	compare colors (both found in fruit colors, crayons, and hair dye)

Of course and glad you asked!!

Here are some links to graphic organizers to help you brainstorm or organize details to compare and or contrast events, facts, or ideas in an informational text. Some of these graphic organizers look like they are for stories or poems, narrative literature, but you can adjust them to fit informational text, or whatever you are comparing.

• Internet Academy Reading Resource Bank: Comparing Characters
• Schools of California: Graphic Organizers
• And a chart from Educational Services in Kansas

• Start out with a clear and specific introduction.
  • Example: The spider and the octopus are alike in two ways. The poem says ...
  • Example: This story shows cats and dogs have both similarities and differences.
• Follow with specific details, evidence from text.
  • Example They both have eight legs and they both are carnivorous animals (eat meat).
  • Example While they are both common house pets, cats avoid water at all costs, while dogs like to swim. (This sentence compares and contrasts. You might also want to discuss all similarities, then discuss all differences.)
• Organization of compare / contrast writing
  • First list all similarities, then list all differences
  • OR combine similarities and differences in one sentence as in example above. You can write several sentences in this format.
• End with a concluding sentence.
  • Example: There may be even more similarities between the spider and the octopus, but these are two described in the poem.
  • Example: The author lists even more differences and wants the readers to choose the kind of pets they like.

• Words that show similarity:

  both	alike	same
  parallel	equivalent	uniform
  at the same time	comparable	complementary
  together	equal

  
  
• Words that show differences:

different	although	while
individual	unique	distinct
in contrast	besides	in spite of
unlike	otherwise	however
various	dissimilar	on the other hand
but