![]() I skipped over option 2 earlier because it has a different problem from options 1 and 3. The fragments were obtained in a way similar to the way in which the sticks were obtained.īut it seems to me that the writer in this case is expecting the reader to do an awful lot of grunt work to reach the intended meaning. ![]() The problem is somewhat similar to comparing "apples to picking oranges," except that here the form is closer to comparing "picking apples to oranges." With a bit of effort, the reader can fill out the parallel structure that option 3 implies: To make it whole, the reader must supply the missing part of the comparison (the procedure by which the sticks were obtained). Therefore, the comparison, as expressed, is not in parallel. Either way, the wording does not clearly express the underlying idea.Īlthough option 3 has the advantage of explicitly indicating (via the phrase "in a way") that a procedure is of interest, it still has the problem that it literally compares the way that the fragments were obtained with the sticks themselves (not with the way the sticks were obtained). ![]() Presented with the sentence in option 1, I would wonder whether the intended meaning involved a similarity between processes of acquisition (the procedure for obtaining the fragments and the procedure for obtaining the sticks) or a similarity between the things ultimately obtained (the fragments and the sticks). This is particularly problematic for option 1, which doesn't explicitly mention procedures (or methods or processes or ways) at all and which introduces the comparison by means of "similar to" (rather than "similarly to")-a phrase that normally introduces comparisons of nouns rather than of verbs. As the poster notes, the similarity under consideration isn't between the fragments and the sticks, but between the procedure for obtaining the fragments and the procedure for obtaining the sticks. To my mind, none of these options is entirely satisfactory. The fragments were obtained in a way similar to the sticks. ![]() The fragments were obtained similarly to the sticks. The fragments were obtained similar to the sticks. ![]() To this point, the original poster and a commenter have suggested three options for expressing the intended idea: ![]()
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