Parallel ideas in a series

Readers expect items in a series to appear in parallel grammatical form. When one or more of the items violate readers’ expectations, a sentence will be needlessly awkward.

Example sentence with editing. Original sentence: Abused children commonly exhibit one or more of the following symptoms: withdrawal, rebelliousness, restlessness, and they are depressed. Revised sentence: Abused children commonly exhibit one or more of the following symptoms: withdrawal, rebelliousness, restlessness, and depression. Explanation: The words

The revision presents all of the items as nouns.

Example sentence with editing. Original sentence: Hooked on romance novels, I learned that nothing is more important than being rich, looking good, and to have a good time. Revised sentence: Hooked on romance novels, I learned that nothing is more important than being rich, looking good, and having a good time. Explanation: The words

The revision uses -ing forms for all items in the series.

Example sentence with editing. Original sentence: After assuring us that he was sober, Sam drove down the middle of the road, ran one red light, and two stop signs. Revised sentence: After assuring us that he was sober, Sam drove down the middle of the road, ran one red light, and went through two stop signs. Explanation: The verb phrase

The revision adds a verb to make the three items parallel: drove . . . , ran . . . , went through . . . .

Exercises:

Identifying parallel structure

Parallelism 1

Parallelism 2

Parallelism 3

Parallelism 4