Planning your ideas
Using spider diagrams
Spider diagrams are useful for a quick recording of thoughts and ideas. When you are writing about one text, you may decide to use a spider diagram to jot down your ideas and then order them.
When writing about two texts you need to make links between the points you have identified about each of them. To do this, you could:
- make separate spider diagrams for each text, and then look to link points between them
- make one spider diagram showing each point you make about one text (for example ‘the author directly addresses the audience’), and checking to see if it’s true of the other text too
Using tables
When you are practising how to compare texts, you might try using a table or Venn diagramNamed after John Venn who created the term, it’s a way of identifying mathematical relationships between different groups or sets of things. to structure your ideas - in exam conditions this format would not be as practical.
Here’s an example using the two extracts from the previous page:
| Point | Example from extract 1 | Example from extract 2 |
| Both writers focus on the physical safety of the swimmers | Uses medical terms - “acute or chronic” | Also uses medical terms - "dehydration was a serious risk" |
| The difference in tone | Uses the impersonal pronoun ‘one’ - “if one", "One should”, giving a more formal tone | Tone is more personal, established by the frequent use of the personal pronoun ‘I’ : “I feared", "I knew” |
| Point | Both writers focus on the physical safety of the swimmers |
|---|---|
| Example from extract 1 | Uses medical terms - “acute or chronic” |
| Example from extract 2 | Also uses medical terms - "dehydration was a serious risk" |
| Point | The difference in tone |
|---|---|
| Example from extract 1 | Uses the impersonal pronoun ‘one’ - “if one", "One should”, giving a more formal tone |
| Example from extract 2 | Tone is more personal, established by the frequent use of the personal pronoun ‘I’ : “I feared", "I knew” |
