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Parallelism

Parallelism. Keeping sentences on track. What is parallelism?. When making lists of actions in your writing, you should realize that it is important to make all words consistent in form. If the forms do not agree, the sentence is not parallel. . What’s the problem with this sentence?.

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Parallelism

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  1. Parallelism Keeping sentences on track

  2. What is parallelism? • When making lists of actions in your writing, you should realize that it is important to make all words consistent in form. • If the forms do not agree, the sentence is not parallel.

  3. What’s the problem with this sentence? • NOT parallel: My family and I went to Hawaii for Christmas and spent our time surfing, sunbathing, and on hikes. • Explanation: This sentence is not parallel. The noun “hikes” does not agree with the two previous gerund (–ing) verbs. • Parallel: My family and I went to Hawaii for Christmas and spent our time surfing, sunbathing, and hiking.

  4. How can the problem be corrected? • NOT parallel: My family and I went to Hawaii for Christmas and spent our time surfing, sunbathing, and on hikes. • Corrected sentence: My family and I went to Hawaii for Christmas and spent our time surfing, sunbathing, and hiking.

  5. What’s the problem with this sentence? • NOT parallel: Barbra and her son love to fly kites, to bake cookies, and readinggood books. • Parallel/Correct: Barbra and her son love to fly kites, to bake cookies, and to read good books. • OR • Parallel/Correct: Barbra and her son love to fly kites, bake cookies, and read good books.

  6. How can this sentence be corrected? • NOT parallel: Barbra and her son love to fly kites, to bake cookies, and readinggood books. • Parallel/Correct: Barbra and her son love to fly kites, to bake cookies, and to read good books. • OR • Parallel/Correct: Barbra and her son love flying kites, baking cookies, and reading good books.

  7. What rules should bulleted lists follow? To follow the rule that says all items in bulleted lists should “match,” make the following list parallel: Teachers should possess the following qualities: • Patience • Want to see young people make progress • Caring

  8. How can I check for parallelism? • A good rule of thumb when looking for parallelism is paying close attention to coordinating conjunctions (such as and, but, or, nor, for, so, and yet). Coordinating conjunctions are used in listing equal items and therefore can help you spot faulty parallelism.

  9. What’s an example of the way this test works? • NOT Parallel: Marcus does not enjoy taking tests or even to attend school. • Parallel/Correct: Marcus does not enjoy taking tests or even attending school. • Explanation: “to attend school” must be changed to match the gerund (–ing) form, “attending school.” Changing the verb form creates parallelism in the sentence.

  10. What’s an even tricker situation? • When using question words (such as who, what, when, where, why, and how), repeat them in your writing to balance your ideas.

  11. How to solve this tricky problem • NOT Parallel: My professor showed us what to research and to use online search engines. • Parallel/Correct: My professor showed us what to research and how to use online search engines. .

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