In the Writing Center with Ronnie B: A Quick Look at Parallelism

Explains the different forms of parallelism and how to create correct parallel constructions.

Parallelism is a grammatical structure that makes words or phrases of equal importance look and sound similar. This likeness of form enables readers to recognize more readily the likeness of content and function. Parallelism also creates a rhythm that engages readers.

• Debra made her point by not eating, drinking, or sleeping for 48 hours.
• He turned Capitol Records into a rock-oriented company by signing artists like the Beach Boys, the Beatles, and the Steve Miller Band.

This is also parallelism:

• Maybe this isn’t entirely due to the growth of the Internet and online publishing. Maybe having lackadaisical, disinterested workers like Mary Smith taking up space in the newsroom isn’t the best use of the paper’s valuable resources. And maybe thumbing one’s nose at the contributions of a longtime reader who actually wants to be a part of the dying local newspaper isn’t good for business either.

This example is still a list of like elements, as are the two examples above it, but it is a list of similarly constructed sentences rather than a series of similarly constructed items within a single sentence. Pay attention to the similar “maybe-isn’t” phrase of each sentence that creates the like or parallel structure.

NOTE: Writers often wonder why this structure is called “parallelism”: items in a list presented one after the other are in series, they say, and series is not parallel. But we’re not talking about electrical circuits; we are, instead, talking about like-grammatical structure.

Here is another form of parallelism — one that makes it easy to see like-grammatical structure, to see true parallel structure:

• Jan, Shirley, and Karen were born in 1939, 1940, and 1944, respectively.

We’re talking about unchanging order here, about how Jan, Shirley, and Karen — in that order — correspond to 1939, 1940, and 1944 — in that order. “Jan” is in respect to “1939”; “Shirley” is in respect to “1940”; and “Karen” is in respect to “1944.” This structure is more obviously parallel than a list of items — Jan, Shirley, and Karen are “parallel” to 1939, 1940, and 1944 — but it is the unchanging order, the like-grammatical structure, that makes it a parallel construction.

Writers create true parallelism by forming sentence parts with the same grammatical structure: clause and clause, participle and participle, prepositional phrase and prepositional phrase, etc. When writers don’t use the same grammatical structure with all sentence parts in a list, they create what is known as false parallelism. Careful writers avoid this:

• I went to the bank, the post office, the grocery store, and watched TV.

Notice how the different sentence parts — the items in our “list” — do not all have the same grammatical structure:

I went to the bank . . .

I went to the post office . . .

I went to the grocery store . . .

and

I went to watched TV.

The “went to” phrase has to fit, apply to, or agree with all elements in our list, and it does not fit the “watched TV” phrase. Think of the distributive property found in mathematics to illustrate this idea. In the following example, the 4 is distributed to the 1, 2, and 3, which are inside the parentheses:

Think of your parallel grammatical structure in the same way: the phrase that precedes the first element of the list (like the 4 in the equation above) has to “distribute” to every other element in the list (like the 1, 2, and 3 in our equation). If it does not, your parallel structure is not correct and needs repair.

• I went to the bank, the post office, and the grocery store and watched TV.

The addition of the conjunction “and” before “the grocery store” completes and closes the parallel construction while the second “and” attaches “watched TV” to the end of the sentence. “Watched TV” is separate from our parallel construction; it is an addition to our sentence. Note how the “I” fits every part of our sentence while the “went to” phrase fits all three items in our list and creates true parallelism:

I went to the bank . . .

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I went to the post office . . .

and

I went to the grocery store . . .

and

(after doing these three things)

I watched TV.

Here’s another example of parallelism. Note that the first sentence sounds like parallelism but is false, while the second is true parallelism:

• Use the verbs “is” and “are” correctly, wisely, and keep them to a minimum.

• Use the verbs “is” and “are” correctly and wisely and keep them to a minimum.

Parallelism doesn’t always take the form of items in a list or elements in a series. The following is also an example of parallelism:

• Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy (KJV, Matthew 5: 3–7).

Note how the sentence parts in the Beatitudes above have the same structure and, as a result, the same rhythm.

Consider another set of examples:

• Science was taught by the textbook method, while now the laboratory method is employed.

• Science was taught by the textbook method; now it is taught by the laboratory method.

The first example uses opposing structures (and is therefore not parallel): science — taught — method : method.

The second example, however, keeps the same structure throughout (and is therefore parallel): science — taught — method : science — taught — method.

The parallel structure of the second example emphasizes the similar look and sound of the phrases; this likeness of form helps readers recognize the likeness of content and function. And although brief, there’s a rhythm present that captures the attention of readers.

These are also forms of parallelism:

• I go to restaurants and the gym a lot; food and working out are important to me.
• Mr. Jones and Ms. Smith manage XYZ Company. Jones runs the payroll department; Smith does all the hiring and firing.

Remember to keep the same order/structure. Restaurants and the gym are mentioned in a certain order, so explain or define them in that same order. Likewise, explain what Jones and Smith do according to the order in which they were introduced. Parallelism such as this keeps your writing neatly organized, which helps readers move swiftly through your text, easily grasping, associating, and remembering the information you’ve presented.