| Parallelism
Parallelism, part 1
Parallelism allows you to show order and clarity and
rhythm in a sentence, a paragraph, a section, or a whole document
by putting elements that have the same function in the same
grammatical form. It creates a sense of balance and provides a sense of the relative
importance of pieces of information. Parallelism is required in lists
and series; in compound structures; in every kind of comparison, including
those using than or as; and in contrasting elements.
Parallel structures may be as simple as groups of single words (nouns,
adjectives, verbs, etc.) or as complicated as groups of phrases or
clauses within a sentence or headings within a document. Sometimes
the parallel structures appear as pairs, sometimes as lists or series.
They are usually connected with and, but, or, or nor. Now let’s
see what they look like.
In the examples that follow, the elements that should be parallel
are bolded.
Parallel Words: Depression and belligerence are
behaviors that many abused children exhibit.
**Note: In this sentence the parallel elements are both nouns that function
as the subject of the sentence. So they have to be in the same grammatical
form .
In addition to single words, phrases (like prepositional phrases,
verbal phrases, and noun phrases) can also be parallel structures
in sentences.
Prepositional phrase: In love as in
war, no holds are barred.
**Note: In this case the parallel elements
are connected by as (which indicates a comparison). Be careful,
though, because as isn’t
always used to compare. It sometimes does other things.
Infinitive phrase: I couldn’t decide whether to
pay my rent,
to buy food, or to go to the movies.
Noun phrase: He had no time for school, no
money for fun.
**Note: In the example above, the parallel elements are joined by
a comma which indicates that a word, and, is left out.
Clauses (groups of words that contain a subject and a verb) can also
be parallel elements in sentences.
Dependent Clauses: Michiko told the judge that
she had been pulled out of a line of fast-moving traffic and that
she had a perfect driving record.
Independent Clauses: In matters of principle, stand
like a rock;
in matters of taste, swim with the current.
**Note: In the preceding example, the two independent clauses
are joined by a semi-colon which indicates that the two clauses
are equally
important in meaning and which also indicates that the coordinating
conjunction (in this case and) has been left out.
You may want to pause here and
complete exercise
1 and exercise
2.
Parallelism, part 2
As a writer, you might have problems with parallelism (most of us
do from time to time) if you don’t put parallel structures in
parallel form. When that happens, your reader often ends up being
confused, and you lose the benefits of clarity, order, and rhythm
that parallelism offers you.
In the following examples, writers have failed to put parallel elements
in parallel form. An improved version follows each example. The parallel
elements are bolded.
Faulty: Her complaints were boring, childish, and showed
how ignorant she was.
Improved: Her complaints were boring, childish, and ignorant.
**Note: The conjunction (connecting word) and indicates that the
underlined elements are equal in importance and function within the
sentence and so should be parallel in grammatical form (in this case,
they are all adjectives which describe the noun complaints). Notice
how much clearer, more emphatic and rhythmic the sentence is when
the parallelism is right!
Faulty: She worked late in the evening not only to
catch up on her studies, but also writing her paper.
Improved: She worked hard late in the evening not only to
catch up on her studies, but also to write her
paper.
**Note: In this example, the correlative not only . . . but also.
. . indicates a parallel structure that requires parallel form (in
this case, the infinitive phrases to catch up on her studies and to
write her paper.)
After part two, we recommend completing exercise
3. A list of all
exercises to test your understanding of parallelism can be found here.
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