Parallelism
- 1. Balance is key!
- 2. For effective writing, it is important that components of your sentences have balance. This balanced arrangement is called parallelism, or parallel structure.
- 3. In other words, you want this: Not this:
- 4. FAULTY: At the garden store, Larissa bought plastic flamingos, ceramic gnomes, and a mermaid. PARALLEL: At the garden store, Larissa bought plastic flamingos, ceramic gnomes, and a concrete mermaid.
- 5. Once you discover a non-parallel item in a sentence, you have two solutions: A. Make the non-parallel item conform to match the other item(s). FAULTY: The giraffe has traits that seem contradictory; it is gangly, graceful, and has dignity. PARALLEL: The giraffe has traits that seem contradictory; it is gangly, graceful, and dignified.
- 6. Once you discover a non-parallel item in a sentence, you have two solutions: A. Change the other item(s) to match the original non-parallel one. FAULTY: We spent the hour in the waiting room reading old magazines, eating stale cookies, and we wiggled on the hard plastic chairs. PARALLEL: In the waiting room, we read old magazines, ate stale cookies, and wiggled on the hard plastic chairs.
- 7. I bought three items at the store: a huge watermelon, a frozen pizza, and a magazine.
- 8. When Tony couldn’t find his jeans, he looked in the closet, under the stairs, and the
- 9. To prepare for the dinner, Mary chopped vegetables boiled pasta, and
- 10. If a sentence is parallel, draw a star, rainbow, or unicorn by it. If a sentence is NOT parallel, write an “FP” (FAULTY PARALLELISM) by the sentence, then use editing marks to make it right.