I'm trying to write a college essay using an extended metaphor comparing my desire to pursue education in the future with the creation of a yoyo. This is probably a bit confusing, so I'll try to explain.

I have four separate sections in the essay.

  1. The Design - a.k.a. The Inspiration
  2. The Machining - a.k.a. The Vision
  3. The Testing - a.k.a. The Assessment
  4. The Production - a.k.a The Envisionment

The first is about how I got the inspiration to become a teacher. The second is how I molded my high school extracurriculars around that goal. The third is how I want to continue testing whether or not teaching is something for me in university. The last is my end goal I guess.

At the moment, I just have it so that it's one paragraph about the yoyo followed by a paragraph about myself and the whole teaching thing. Is there a way for me to join them together using a metaphor to make the essay a more literally coherent/excellent piece? Any help/advice at all would be very much appreciated - thanks in advance!

closed as off-topic by user5645, Lauren Ipsum, Mark Baker, Ken Mohnkern, Standback Oct 6 '16 at 10:19


  • "This question appears to be off-topic because asking what to write or asking for help rephrasing a sentence or passage are both off-topic here, as such questions are very unlikely to help anybody else." – Community, Lauren Ipsum, Mark Baker, Ken Mohnkern, Standback


Since your issue is making them blend together more easily, instead of using one paragraph for the yo-yo, one paragraph for the teaching, etc, Why not combine them in a single paragraph? I think that it would be easier to blend the two into each other if they were not separated by a paragraph break. I suggest finding something in common between the two parallel steps and building on that.

  • My goal was to actually fuse them into a single paragraph but I don't really know to do that. I guess it's kind of something I need to fix on my own though. – George Zhang Oct 2 '16 at 2:59
  • Perhaps. That's more of a what to write question, and we don't really answer those on this site. Have you ever considered writing about a topic that easier? Chances are, if it's too hard for you to write, it will also be too hard for the readers to identify with it. if you need help writing a college essay, it may help to look up examples, that's what I did to prepare for mine. – RE Lavender Oct 2 '16 at 5:23
