Parallelism in writing means that similar parts in a sentence have the same structure: Their parts are balanced. When comparing things or listing items in a series, use nouns with nouns, verbs with verbs, and phrases with phrases.
| NOT PARALLEL |
I enjoy basketball more than playing video games. [Basketball is a noun, but playing video games is a phrase.] |
| PARALLEL | I enjoy basketball more than video games. |
| PARALLEL | I enjoy playing basketball more than playing video games. |
| NOT PARALLEL |
Last night, I worked, studied, and was watching television. [Verbs must be in the same tense to be parallel. Was watching has a different structure from worked and studied.] |
| PARALLEL | Last night, I worked, studied, and watched television. |
| PARALLEL | Last night, I was working, studying, and watching television. |
| NOT PARALLEL |
This weekend, we can go to the beach or walking in the mountains. [To the beach should be paired with another prepositional phrase: to the mountains.] |
| PARALLEL | This weekend, we can go to the beach or to the mountains. |
Certain paired words, called correlative conjunctions, link two equal elements and show the relationship between them. Here are the paired words:
| both … and | neither … nor | rather … than |
| either … or | not only … but also |
Make sure the items joined by these paired words are parallel.
| NOT PARALLEL |
Bruce wants both freedom and to be wealthy. [Both is used with and, but the items joined by them are not parallel.] |
| PARALLEL | Bruce wants both freedom and wealth. |
| NOT PARALLEL | He can neither fail the course and quitting his job is also impossible. |
| PARALLEL | He can neither fail the course nor quit his job. |