Using parallel structures
Parallel structures are frequently used within sentences to underscore the similarity of ideas. They may also be used to bind together a series of sentences expressing similar information. In the following passage describing folk beliefs, anthropologist Margaret Mead presents similar information in parallel grammatical form .
Actually, almost every day, even in the most sophisticated home, something is likely to happen that evokes the memory of some old folk belief. The salt spills. A knife falls to the floor. Your nose tickles. Then perhaps, with a slightly embarrassed smile, the person who spilled the salt tosses a pinch over his left shoulder. Or someone recites the old rhyme, “Knife falls, gentleman calls.” Or as you rub your nose you think, That means a letter. I wonder who’s writing?
—Margaret Mead, “New Superstitions for Old”