Compare and Contrast

Introduction:

The Indigenous individuals in Australia are now considered a minority in their own country, these individuals were the one to make Australia an independent nation.  These individuals face many difficulties in their everyday life and aren’t getting their basic human rights (Cooke, Mitrou, Lawrence, Guimond & Beavon, 2017). The essay compares two articles, first one is by Markwick, Ansari, Clinch and McNeil (2019) and Biddle (2019). The former article’s topic is ‘Perceived racism may partially explain the gap in health between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Victorians: A cross-sectional population-based study’. The latter article’s topic is ‘Four lessons from 11 years of Closing the Gap reports”. The essay aims to compare the two articles that talk about the challenges the Indigenous Australians face in their countries due to a bunch of reasons. The comparison of the two articles would be done under three headings that are similarities, differences and questions. These will display the similarities in writing and content style that would be addressed in the differences section. The question section will entail few unanswered questions in these articles or if any question that hasn’t been focused that seems necessary to answer in the articles. The essay aims to give an insight about how to critically analyse different articles in terms of its writing and content style. 

Similarities:

There are many similarities after analyzing these two articles, firstly both of the articles are addressing the issues of native individuals of Australia. The Indigenous people are now a minority in the country and are not treated well in the country by their non-native counter parts. Due to the rise in awareness of social issues realized the Australian government to work for these individuals.  Secondly, both of these articles talk about Closing the Gap approach introduced by the government to reduce the gap between the Aboriginal Australians and non-Indigenous Australians in terms of health, access to primary education, employment opportunities, child mortality and educational accomplishment. Among many policies this approach was implemented for the betterment of the lifestyles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals. This approach was introduced in 2008 by the Australian Prime Minister at that time. Thirdly, both of the articles include how can Closing the Gap approach can be altered to have a positive impact on the native Australians. Native Australians have been through a lot and the Australian government is trying its best to provide them with the basic rights. Fourthly, both of the articles include thorough research regarding the Closing the Gap approach and about the Indigenous Australians. Another similarity in both of these articles is the recommendation of a good policy for Indigenous Australians to address the issues of them. In the journal article it has been said that Closing the Gap approach hasn’t been effective since its introduction and the Australian government needs to address racism in the policy to successfully impact the native Australians in terms of health. The Blog Post compares this policy with other policy and states what is missing in the various policies targeted for the Indigenous Australians. Lastly, both of the articles have statistics and figures included in them to further elaborate the current situation of the Indigenous individuals. 

Differences:

Like the similarities there are also some difference observed while comparing the two articles. The fist major difference in both the articles is that one is an authentic journal article where as the other one is a Blog Post. A journal article is authentic for research and includes proper research with appropriate testing tools. However, a Blog Post is not considered an authentic source for research, it can provide suitable understanding and knowledge regarding a topic. Another difference in both of these articles is that the main objective of the journal article is to show the impact of perceived racism on the gap in health between the Indigenous Australians and the non-Indigenous Australians. The article explains different factors like alcohol consumption, smoking, body weight, socioeconomic status and racism. More specifically, racism and smoking has been displayed as the major factors of the persistent gap between the Indigenous individuals and non-Indigenous individuals. The Blog Post includes the lessons learned through the Closing the Gap reports. The blog post specifically explains Closing the Gap approach since its introduction in 2008. The blog post under four headings critically analyse the Closing the Gap report and how can the Australian government alter the approach to make it a success for the native Australians. Furthermore, the journal article talks about Closing the health Gap between the native Australians and non-native Australians whereas the Blog Post talks about to reduce the gap between the two in terms of other factors. Moreover, the journal articles don’t have pictures in their text, this one also does not have any pictures regarding the topic.