Revising for Parallelism
When you review a draft of your writing, check for sentences that sound awkward. You may need to revise for
parallelism—the use of a series of words, phrases, or clauses that have similar grammatical form. The following guidelines will help you find and fix problems with parallelism in your writing.
Begin by searching for sentences that contain a series of words, phrases, or clauses that are separated by commas. Then make necessary corrections so that all parts of the series have the same (or parallel) grammatical form. The first example below includes a series of phrases; a simple revision makes the parts of the series parallel.
Not parallel
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I help my mother do the laundry, shop for groceries, and to bake fresh bread.
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Parallel
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I help my mother do the laundry, shop for groceries, and bake fresh bread.
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If an article (a, an, or the) or a preposition (at, from, in, and so on) applies to all the items in the series, make sure it either appears before the first item only or before every item. You can also apply this rule to pronouns such as who and that and to helping verbs such as am, is, have, had, could, and would.
Not parallel
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She washes dishes at dawn, noon, and at night.
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Parallel
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She washes dishes at dawn, noon, and night.
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Parallel
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She washes dishes at dawn, at noon, and at night.
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Put verbals in parallel form too, pairing infinitives with infinitives, gerunds with gerunds, and participles with participles.
Not parallel
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Seeing is to believe.
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Parallel
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To see is to believe. (infinitives)
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Parallel
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Seeing is believing. (gerunds)
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Not parallel
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The beautiful rainbow was fascinating and an inspiration.
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Parallel
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The beautiful rainbow was fascinating and inspiring. (participles)
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