7.3 Parallelism
Parallelism Exercise 3
Revise each of the following sentences on your own sheet of paper to create parallel structure using correlative conjunctions.
- The cyclist owns both a mountain bike and has a racing bike.
- The movie not only contained lots of action, but also it offered an important lesson.
- My current job is neither exciting nor is it meaningful.
- Jason would rather listen to his father than be taking advice from me.
- We are neither interested in buying a vacuum cleaner nor do we want to utilize your carpet cleaning service.
Key Takeaways
- Parallelism creates a sense of rhythm and balance in writing by using the same grammatical structure to express equal ideas.
- Faulty parallelism occurs when elements of a sentence are not balanced, causing the sentence to sound clunky and awkward.
- Parallelism may be created by connecting two clauses or making a list using coordinating conjunctions, by comparing two items using than or as; or by connecting two parts of a sentence using correlative conjunctions.
This is adapted from “Refining Your Writing: How Do I Improve My Writing Technique?” chapter 7 of the book Successful Writing (v. 1.0). For details on it (including licensing), click here.
