Let's talk about parallel structure,
which in the context of a sentence
means that a number of things are
running parallel. And the word "parallel,"
of course, refers to things that are sort
of along the same track, so two lines
that are going the same direction, but
will never meet.
Of course if you're looking at something
like train tracks for instance, then
eventually it looks like they come
together in the distance, but we know
that that's an optical illusion.
So as we think about parallel
structure, then, if you look at this
example, it reads, "I love to hunt, but I
don't like to fish." And if we look at
these together, they have a lot in common,
these two clauses here. So we have a
coordinating conjunction, and we know
that coordinating conjunctions often
tie together two equal elements ... so
parallel structure can be very useful
for making these clauses the same. In the
first one we have "I" [as] the subject, then
we have "love" [as] the verb, and we have an
infinitive in "to hunt." So if you remember,
the infinitive is "to" plus the verb. If
you look at the second part now, we again
have a subject in "I" (it's kind of hiding
there a little bit), then we have "like" as
our verb, and we're just going to skip "do
not" ("do" is the helping verb, and "not" is the
adverb). And then we have, again, an
infinitive at the end. So we have "to fish"
at the end.
Now you can see that these two
patterns here are exactly the same, but
we could write it differently. So we
could write, "I love to hunt but I don't
like fishing." And "fishing"
is a present participle --
it ends in
"ing." And the sentence would be completely
grammatical yet if we ended with "fishing,"
but it's not quite as elegant. So the
thing with parallel structure is that if
you don't use it, you're not necessarily
making a grammatical mistake, but often
you can use parallel structure to make
things just a little bit more stylish.
Let's look at a few more examples just
to get the hang of this,
and each one is unique. So
when you look for parallel structure
in sentences, there's no easy way to
solve every single problem. You
just have to be aware of this issue, and
then when you come across different kinds
of cases, you're going to be prepared for
them. So number one here [reads], "I'm taking an
English course because I find the
subject both compelling and it
challenges me." This one follows our last
pattern somewhat, so this one says, "both
compelling," and you can see here that
because we have this "and," we want these
things to be somewhat similar ... so both
this and, in this case, "challenging." So
let's make make them both present
participles -- both will end in "ing."
So with the "ing" ending then, they're both
parallel. And you can see that often
parallelism comes in when you're
dealing with these kind of correlative
conjunctions or coordinating
conjunctions -- conjunctions that are tying
things together, and then we want to make
them the same. We also have this with
lists. So in this case we have, "I usually
bring a chocolate bar [item number one], five
pencils [number two], eraser [three], and a
pen." You can hear that sounds kind of
awkward already. But the problem is that
with some of these items we have an
article. So "a" is the article."The" is also
an article, but we're not using that one
here. So "a chocolate bar" ... now we wouldn't
say, "a five pencils," so with the
plural we don't typically use "a." But
then we don't have "an eraser," so we want
an "an" in there. But we do have "and a pen,"
and the trick then is that if you have a
list and you're adding articles, or even
prepositions (it can be different things as
well), you have to be consistent. So try to
use all articles or none, all
prepositions or none, and that'll make it
nice and stylish. Next one: "who doesn't
like to correct sentences on parallel
structure and an array of other
grammatical topics." So in this case we
have this little preposition "on" here.
And you can see that, again, we have "and,"
which is connecting two things, so we
have "sentences" and then we get two things. So
"on parallel structure" -- that's our first
thing (number one), and now we have the
second thing. And notice we have a noun,
"an array," but we don't have that
preposition--there's no proposition after
"and." So if we wanted to be hyper-correct
here, we would stick "on" here as well, just
to make them parallel. And the trick then
is to figure out where does this kind of
comparison start. So if we say, "correct
sentences," and then we get some
information about this, we get two kinds
of options, then we can check at the
beginning of each option if
it starts with a preposition,
let's say, and then if, after "and," the same
thing is happening.
So that's a fairly minor kind of
omission of a word, not a huge deal, but,
again, something to watch out for.
Let's finish with two final examples. And
the first one reads: "Sebastian was
sad that someone had wrecked his Lego
house and no one would claim
responsibility for this act of terrorism" ...
kind of dramatic there. Now we have, again,
a comparison. So we have "and" here, and if
we look on either side of the comparison,
we see "Sebastian was sad,"
that's our first little bit here, and
then it says "that," that's kind of item
number one, "that someone had wrecked his
Lego house and no one would claim
responsibility for this act of terrorism."
If you look at the beginning of each of
these, this one starts with a relative
pronoun, "that," which introduces a
dependent clause. This one is missing
"that," and so if we put "that" in, it just
read a little bit more smoothly--"that
someone has wrecked his Lego house and that no one
would claim responsibility." Again, look
for that comparison, and then see if you
can make them parallel. One final example
to look at, and this is one that often
happens in bureaucratic writing, so this
one reads, "our department has three
objectives" -- then we have some kind of
silly objectives here. And if you
use bullets, it's easy to forget about
parallelism, so try to make your bullets
kind of the same if you can.
The first one here starts with "improve,"
so that's a verb here. And then the
second one, "reducing," which is a present
participle, ends in "ing." And the last one
does not start with a verb at all --
we just want "better team spirit." So it's
best if we can make them all the same,
and it's up to you how you want to do
that. In this case, if you start with
"improve," maybe you could say, "improve
efficiency, reduce overtime hours, and
create team spirit." So use the verb
"create" at the end. That's it
for parallel structure. I hope you found
this useful. And don't over do it--if you
have a very short sentence, then you can
often just slack off a little bit, and
that's fine.