Once you’re comfortable with drawing analogies, you can also follow some simple steps to make sure you get the most out of them. Try to refrain from using analogies for simple concepts and reserve them only for difficult ones to avoid confusion. Use plenty of concrete examples to simplify abstract concepts and information. Additionally, you should review the purpose of your analogy from time to time, since it can be easy to remember the comparison but difficult to recall what made it an accurate one.

One technique that compliments analogies exquisitely is mind mapping. This tool draws connections between different concepts within the same topic to keep track of how they all connect to each other. The most basic way to create a mind map is to start with a circle in the middle of some paper and draw branches that extend from it. Fill these branch-endings with sub-topics and extend even more branches to exhaust the sub-topic. You can use this method to keep track of all your analogies, while also adding additional information relevant to them.

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