ENGL394

 Expression of two or more similar ideas using the same parallel structure ◦ -nouns, verbs, prepositions, adjectives  Helps your audience understand that ideas are related and of similar importance  Makes your writing easier to read and avoids reader confusion

 Gary likes to read, write, and play basketball.  Can you think of another way to write this sentence?

 Gary likes to read, write, and play basketball  Gary likes reading, writing, and playing basketball.

 Gary likes to read, write, and play basketball.  Gary likes reading, writing, and playing basketball.  These examples use consistent verb tenses.

 Gary likes to read, write, and playing basketball.  What’s wrong with this sentence?

 Gary likes to read, write, and playing basketball.  You never want to mix word patterns.

 Andersen is hiring managers, programmers, and people who work in accounting.  What’s wrong with this sentence?

 Andersen is hiring managers, programmers, and people who work in accounting.”  PARALLEL: Andersen is hiring managers, programmers, and accountants.

 Andersen earns income by auditing, consulting, and by bookkeeping.  What’s wrong with this sentence?

 A preposition sits before a noun or pronoun to show the noun’s relationship to another word in the sentence. ◦ -about, at, before, behind, by, for, from, into, near, of, on, over, through, to, under  A prepositional phrase contains a preposition and an object of the preposition.

Chart from towson.edu

 Andersen earns income by auditing, consulting, and by bookkeeping.  PARALLEL: Andersen earns income by auditing, consulting, and bookkeeping.  PARALLEL: Andersen earns income by auditing, by consulting, and by bookkeeping.

 Formerly, science was taught by the textbook method, while now the laboratory method is employed.  Is there something wrong with this sentence?

 Formerly, science was taught by the textbook method, while now the laboratory method is employed.  PARALLEL: Formerly, science was taught by the textbook method; now it is taught by the laboratory method. Common belief: In order to make your writing interesting, you have to vary the forms of your expressions. -Not necessarily true

 The French, the Italians, Spanish, and Portuguese all speak different languages.  What’s wrong with this sentence?

 The French, the Italians, Spanish, and Portuguese all speak different languages.  PARALLEL: The French, the Italians, the Spanish, and the Portuguese all speak different languages.  If you use an article (such as “the”) before a term, you must use it before all the terms.

 Be careful when using correlative expressions, such as both/and or either/or.

 It was both a long ceremony and very tedious.  How can we fix this sentence?

 It was both a long ceremony and very tedious.  PARALLEL: The ceremony was both long and tedious.

 It was both a long ceremony and very tedious.  PARALLEL: The ceremony was both long and tedious. **Use either/or and neither/nor**

 Sometimes, you have to use an entirely different word to maintain parallelism.  The production manager was asked to write his report quickly, accurately, and in a detailed manner.  Suggestions on how to make this sentence parallel?

 The production manager was asked to write his report quickly, accurately, and in a detailed manner.  Instead of “in a detailed manner,” use “thoroughly.”  The production manager was asked to write his report quickly, accurately, and thoroughly.

 It is very important to keep lists parallel.  The dictionary can be used to find these: word meanings, spellings, pronunciations, and looking up irregular verbs.  What’s wrong with this list?

 The dictionary can be used to find these: word meanings, spellings, pronunciations, and looking up irregular verbs.  PARALLEL: The dictionary can be used to find these: word meanings, spellings, pronunciations, and irregular verbs.

 You will be doing a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of your client.  The SWOT analysis is essentially a list of internal and external factors.  It is important to keep your SWOT analysis parallel.

 When proofreading your writing, stop at the words “and” or “or.” Look at both sides of the word to see if surrounding words are parallel.  For items in a list, put them in a column.

 With your partner, work on the SWOT analysis of Silver Spring Nursery School to make it parallel.  Structure the phrases/sentences in the way you think is best.  When you are finished, send me your new SWOT document: