Comparing non-fiction viewpoints
English · Key Stage 3 · The School
Viewpoint is built, not stated
Writers rarely announce their opinion; they build it with word choice, what they include, and what they leave out. "The crowd gathered" and "the mob swarmed" describe the same event with opposite sympathies. Ask: which words carry judgement? What has been left out that the other writer includes?
Compare methods, not just opinions
A weak comparison says: writer A likes it, writer B does not. A strong one says HOW: "A uses first-person anecdote to make the reader feel present, whereas B piles up statistics to make disagreement look unreasonable." Same topic, different tools, different effect on the reader — that is the comparison the mark scheme wants.
Connectives that actually compare
Use whereas, in contrast, similarly, likewise, however — and put them INSIDE the sentence so both texts appear together: "Whereas A dwells on one family, B never names an individual." Writing a paragraph on A and then a paragraph on B is not comparison; it is two descriptions side by side.
SIDE BY SIDE (weak): "Text A uses statistics. Text B uses anecdote." Two facts, no comparison. COMPARED (strong): "WHEREAS Text A builds authority through statistics — 'a 43% rise' — Text B works on sympathy through one named family, so A asks the reader to accept a scale of problem while B asks them to care about a case of it." One paragraph, both texts, and a connective doing real work.
A text argues by what it leaves out as much as by what it says. An article about a protest that quotes three police officers and no protesters has made a case without stating one. So ask three questions of any non-fiction text: who SPEAKS here, who is spoken ABOUT, and who does not appear at all. Omission is the hardest thing to spot because there is nothing on the page to underline, and it is often where the viewpoint actually lives.