Comparisons that Relate to an Audience: Study Guide (English Language 8.1)

Why writers compare

A writer facing an audience that does not know a subject, or does not feel about it as the writer does, has a problem. Facts alone rarely close the gap. A comparison closes it by borrowing from something the audience already understands.

Unit 8 builds on what you know about audience and style. The first idea is that writers may make comparisons such as similes, metaphors, analogies and anecdotes to relate an argument to an audience. The second is a condition: an effective comparison must be shared and understood by the audience to advance the writer’s purpose. If the audience does not know the thing you compare to, the comparison fails.

The forms a comparison can take

Form	What it is	Example (written by Marlbridge)
Simile	An explicit comparison using like or as	“Waiting for the results was like standing in a queue that never moved.”
Metaphor	A comparison made by speaking of one thing as if it were another	“The library is the town’s front room.”
Analogy	An extended comparison that explains one thing by matching it with another point by point	“A school timetable is like a train timetable: one late connection delays every other journey.”
Anecdote	A short story used to parallel or illustrate the issue	“My neighbour kept patching her fence for years, and each patch cost more than a new one would have.”

An analogy is usually the most argumentative form because the writer can then say: if you accept the match, you must accept the conclusion. An anecdote adds the weight of a real or realistic experience. A metaphor compresses a whole attitude into a phrase, and a simile keeps the comparison visible.

What a comparison does

Every comparison has two sides:

• The subject (also called the tenor): the thing the writer wants to explain or argue about.
• The familiar side (the vehicle): the thing the audience already understands.

The comparison transfers something from the familiar side to the subject: a feeling (danger, comfort), a structure (cause and effect) or a value (fair, wasteful). It also hides differences. That is why it can persuade: it invites the audience to apply what they know about one thing to another.

The condition: shared and understood

A comparison persuades only if the audience shares the familiar side. Consider the same idea (rising costs) put to two audiences.

• To farmers: “Costs creep up like bindweed: you do not notice it until it has the whole fence.”
• To gamers: “Costs are like a difficulty setting that rises each level without telling you.”

Each works for its audience and each might puzzle the other. A writer must therefore ask:

1. What does this audience know well? (their work, hobbies, history, common stories)
2. What do they value? (the comparison should bring those values to the subject)
3. Could the comparison offend or mislead? (a poor choice can alienate or trivialise)

A public-domain example

In 1895, Booker T. Washington addressed a largely white audience of business and political leaders at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. He told them: “In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.”

The comparison is a simile-like image from the body. Everyone in the audience knows that the fingers are distinct but belong to one hand, so the image is shared and understood. It transfers two ideas: that separation can coexist with unity, and that the hand’s strength depends on the fingers working together. It also frames cooperation in terms of mutual progress that his audience, with its interest in the region’s economy, would value. As a modern reader, you should also notice the limits of that persuasion: the image was shaped for the setting and the constraints of the time, and it says as much about the speaker’s situation as about his beliefs.

Another famous Washington image from the same speech, “Cast down your bucket where you are”, comes from a short story of a ship at sea, which is an anecdote used as an analogy: the thirsty sailors are told that the water they need is already around them. The audience, familiar with ships and water, can transfer the lesson without further explanation.

Worked example 1: analysing a comparison

Task. Explain how the comparison in this passage, written by Marlbridge, helps the writer persuade an audience of local shop owners.

“A high street is like a garden. Water it, and it flowers. Leave it, and it does not stay the same: it fills with weeds. The council that stops maintaining the pavements, the lighting and the market stalls is not saving money; it is deciding what will grow.”

Step 1: name the two sides. Subject: the maintenance of the high street. Familiar side: a garden.

Step 2: say what the audience already knows. Most people, including shop owners, understand that gardens need regular care and that neglected gardens do not stand still but deteriorate.

Step 3: say what is transferred. The idea that neglect is not neutral: stopping care has consequences, in the same way that leaving a garden produces weeds. It also transfers a sense of responsibility (“deciding what will grow”).

Step 4: say what is hidden. Gardens grow by themselves given water and light; high streets depend on shoppers, rents and national trends, which the comparison leaves out. That makes the council’s role seem more decisive than it may be.

Step 5: link to purpose and audience. Shop owners want the council to maintain the high street. The comparison turns a budget decision into a choice with consequences, which supports their request.

Model sentence. “By comparing a neglected high street to an untended garden, the writer invites shop owners to apply what they already know about gardens, that neglect produces weeds rather than stillness, and so to see the council’s savings as a decision about decline.”

Worked example 2: choosing a comparison for an audience

Task. A writer wants to explain to Year 7 pupils why they should save some pocket money each week rather than spending it all. Three comparisons are proposed. Choose the best and explain.

• (i) “Saving is like compound interest accumulating in a fixed-term bond.”
• (ii) “Saving is like charging a phone: you do a little each day, and then you have power when you need it.”
• (iii) “Saving is like the Treasury building up reserves.”

Step 1: identify the audience. Year 7 pupils, eleven or twelve years old, with small amounts of money and a lot of familiarity with phones.

Step 2: test each for “shared and understood”.

• (i) depends on financial terms most of them do not know.
• (ii) uses something they do every day.
• (iii) depends on knowledge of national finance.

Step 3: test for transferred meaning. (ii) transfers the idea of small regular actions building up a reserve for later, which matches the argument.

Step 4: test for risks. A phone analogy could suggest that savings are “used up” daily; the writer could address that by stressing that savings are for later needs.

Answer. (ii) is the best choice, because the familiar side is shared by the audience, and the structure of the comparison (small regular action, reserve, later need) matches the argument.

Common misconceptions

• “A comparison is decoration.” It does argumentative work by transferring what the audience thinks of one thing to another.
• “Any vivid comparison works.” It must be shared and understood by this audience.
• “A metaphor and a simile are the same.” A simile uses like or as; a metaphor speaks of one thing as another.
• “I should just name the device.” Say what is compared, what is transferred and why it suits the audience.
• “A comparison proves the point.” It persuades by resemblance; the resemblance can be challenged. A careful reader may point out what it hides.
• “An anecdote is evidence.” It illustrates or compares; it is not the same as representative data.

Where this leads

Topic 8.2 turns from images to individual words and sentence patterns: how diction and syntax shape the audience’s view of the writer. Practise now with the practice questions, revise with the revision notes, check the checklist, then read the Topic 8.2 study guide. For emphasis and other style tools from Unit 7, revisit the Topic 7.7 study guide.