Short on time? This page is the recap. For explanations and worked examples, use the full study guide.
Recap
- Writers make comparisons (similes, metaphors, analogies and anecdotes) to relate an argument to an audience.
- An effective comparison must be shared and understood by the audience; otherwise it does not advance the writer’s purpose.
- A comparison has a subject and a familiar side. It transfers a feeling, structure or value from the second to the first, and it hides differences.
- On the exam, name both sides, say what is transferred and explain the effect on this audience.
Key relationships
| Form | Marker | Typical effect |
|---|---|---|
| Simile | like or as | Keeps the comparison visible; vivid |
| Metaphor | One thing spoken of as another | Compresses an attitude into a phrase |
| Analogy | Extended point-by-point match | Argues: if the match holds, so does the conclusion |
| Anecdote | A short story as parallel or illustration | Makes the issue concrete and human |
Testing a comparison
- Who is the audience and what do they know well?
- What is the familiar side? Do they share it?
- What is transferred? (feeling, structure, value)
- What is hidden? (differences the comparison skips)
- What does the audience now believe or feel about the subject?
Public-domain anchors
- Booker T. Washington (1895): “as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress”. Everyone knows the hand; the image transfers unity with distinctness, and it appeals to an audience who valued economic cooperation.
- Washington, “Cast down your bucket where you are”: an anecdote of a ship at sea, used as an analogy for finding resources close at hand.
- Abraham Lincoln (1858): “A house divided against itself cannot stand” draws on a familiar domestic image, so an audience can grasp the danger of division at once.
Worked mini-example
Marlbridge sentence: “Letting the river bank erode is like ignoring a leaking roof: each wet season costs more than the last.”
- Subject: neglect of the river bank. Familiar side: an unrepaired roof.
- Audience: homeowners, who know that small leaks become expensive damage.
- Transferred: delay makes the cost grow.
- Hidden: a river is far larger and less controllable than a roof.
- Analysis sentence: “By comparing erosion to a leaking roof, the writer lets homeowners apply their own experience of repair costs to the river bank, which makes early action seem sensible.”
Mistakes to avoid
- Naming the device without saying what it does.
- Ignoring the audience: a comparison is only effective for people who understand it.
- Forgetting what is hidden, which weakens evaluation.
- Mixing metaphors in your own writing (“the tip of a sinking ship’s iceberg”).
- Clichés that no longer make the audience see anything new.
- Treating an anecdote as proof rather than as illustration or comparison.
Quick self-check
- Is “The company was a sinking ship” a simile or a metaphor? (A metaphor: it speaks of one thing as another without “like” or “as”.)
- What must be true of the familiar side of a comparison for it to work? (The audience must share and understand it.)
- Why might a comparison to sailing be a poor choice for an audience of inland city teenagers? (They may lack the experience that gives the image its meaning, so nothing is transferred.)
Next: practice questions.