在议论文写作中，作者经常会使用对比的写作手法，去比较两个话题、观点和事物的不同之处，通过鲜明的对比来达到说服读者的目的。那么对比（contrast）在议论文中具体是如何发挥它的说服作用的，我们今天就一起来看看吧~

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什么是对比（contrast）？

if you contrast one thing with another, you point out or consider the differences between those things.

简单说，对比就是比较两个事物的不同之处，以达到强调的作用。比如官方指南第四篇写作题 Let There Be Dark 中有这样一句话：

And too little darkness, meaning too much artificial light at night, spells trouble for all. 

在这句话中，作者使用了对比的修辞手法，黑夜的减少和人工照明的增加形成了一个鲜明的对比，从而突出了黑夜的重要性。

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对比常见的修辞效果是什么？

1）澄清观点

to elucidate ideas and clear their meanings

2）加强观点

opposite and contrasting ideas shock the audience, heighten drama and are memorable for readers. 

3）平衡观点

contrasting ideas produce balanced structures.

常用句型如下：

What the author does?

The author employs a distinct contrast…

The author contrasts the fact with another…

In contrast to…

Why he or she does it?

…to highlight a paradox…

This tool is utilized to establish an emphasis on…

What effect this is likely to have on readers?

…contribute to the sense that…

…clarify the concepts for the readers.

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如何用3W原则

对contrast展开深度分析？

如何使用3W原则来分析一篇议论文中的contrast呢，我们一起看个例子吧~

We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. And so we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. And so we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. （ 原文选自：Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence.)

  分   析  

King sees young black men, denied their rights at home, sent 8,000 miles “to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia”; Negro and white boys, who cannot study at the same schools in the US,“kill and die together” in Vietnam; boys who cannot live in the same Chicago neighborhood burn huts abroad in “brutal solidarity”. Dichotomies of contrasting images allow King to show how the war highlights state hypocrisy and the moral inconsistencies of segregation.（范文摘自《新SAT写作官方题库与范文》中国出版集团中译出版社）

 原文如何体现3W原则 

首先范文分析了原文作者在此处使用了一个对比的写作手法（Dichotomies of contrasting images），即将黑人在国内无法与白人享受平等权利的事实同在国外一起奔赴战场，去追求所谓自由的事实做了一个对比。

紧接着，范文分析了这一手法的修辞目的（allow King to show…） 即通过对比，向观众揭露了政府虚伪和出尔反尔的真面目。