Quick help: Parallelism

These examples show sentences with correct parallel structure. Need more help? Follow the links.

Correct example sentence: Children who study music also learn confidence, coordination, and creativity.

Make items in a series parallel.

Correct example sentence: Marilyn started her project by turning on her computer and walking the dog.

Make ideas linked with a coordinating conjunction parallel.

Correct example sentence: The weather was not only too windy for sailing but also too cold.

Make ideas linked with a correlative conjunction parallel.

Correct example sentence: It is healthier to eat five small meals a day than to eat one large meal late at night.

Make ideas in comparisons parallel.

Exercise: Identifying parallel structure

Exercise: Parallelism 1

Exercise: Parallelism 2

Exercise: Parallelism 3

Exercise: Parallelism 4

coordinating conjunction and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet; used to join elements of equal grammatical form.

correlative conjunction A pair of conjunctions connecting grammatically equal elements: either . . . or, neither . . . nor, whether . . . or, not only . . . but also, both . . . and.