[1] The two protagonists, as in other disputation poems, are two inarticulate things: in this case, two pieces of agricultural equipment, the hoe and the plough.
The Hoe and Plough is (along with Sheep and Grain) the best attested of the disputation poems given its attestation from ~60 manuscripts, likely due to its integral place as part of the ancient Sumerian scribal curriculum especially at the city of Nippur where the overwhelming majority of the manuscripts are provenanced.
[3] In place of the cosmogony is a hymn[4] or a series of epithets addressed to Hoe (such as "child of a poor man") covering the first 5 lines.
[5] This accords to the normal pattern of disputation poems where the first character cast to argue also turns out as the winner.
For example, Hoe and Plough contains remarkable phraseological continuity with the Akkadian Palm and Vine, which is attested in manuscripts two millennia later (3rd century BC).