Definition of Parallelism in Writing

Do you ever read a sentence like, "I enjoy tennis more than playing baseball" and think that it just doesn't sound quite right? There is a reason it sounds a bit off, and that is because the writer has broken the parallelism rule. Parallelism means that a sentence must be balanced; it means that parts of a sentence that are similar need to have the same structure. The correct way to write the above sentence is: "I enjoy tennis more than baseball" or "I enjoy playing tennis more than playing baseball." Let's find out why.

Nouns

Nouns need to be balanced with nouns. In the sentence, "I enjoy tennis more than playing baseball," "tennis" is a noun, but "playing baseball" is a phrase.

Verb Tense

Balance verb tenses. This sentence is not parallel: "Yesterday, I worked, studied and was reading a book." The last item in the series uses a different verb tense then the first two; all verb tenses need to be the same. "Yesterday, I worked, studied and read a book."

Prepositional Phrases

Pair prepositional phrases with prepositional phrases. In the sentence, "Next month we can go to the movies or riding motorcycles in the mountains," the prepositional phrase "to the movies" is not parallel with the verb "riding." The corrected sentence looks like this: "Next month we can go to the movies or to the mountains to ride motorcycles."

Comparing

When comparing two things using words like "than" or "as," make sure the items on each side is parallel. Incorrect: "Driving to town is as fast as the bus." Correct: "Driving to town is as fast as taking the bus."

Conjunctions

When using correlative conjunctions such as "both...and," "either...or" or "rather...than," the items being joined must be parallel. Incorrect: "Mary wants both fame and wealthy." Correct: "Mary wants both fame and wealth."

Resources

• Parallel Structure Quiz
• Parallel Form

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