21st Century Grammar Handbook

But when style as well as substance comes into play, parallelism can bee ective as a technique. Its basic requirement is that parts of sentences, paragraphs, or whole documents be more or less equivalent. So a sentence made up of three clauses will probably bene t by having all three clauses be of roughly the same length, in the same voice, tense, and mood, and made up of words that are similar intone The soldiers marched into camp, the artillery setup their cannons, and the cavalry tethered their horses.”
The following version of this sentence is not wrong, but it shifts so much in the basic categories of parallelism that readers might lose track of what is happening or how they are supposed to perceive the action The soldiers march into camp,
cannons were setup by the artillery, and the horses of the cavalry were rounded up and then hobbled and tied together in a loose group so that they wouldn’t runaway or stampede Shifts intone can have the same disorienting e ect as changes in length, tense, or voice of clauses The soldiers toddled into camp, the artillery puzzled over their outdated and dilapidated cannons, and the cavalry looked to their horsies.”
Here are some general examples and points to watch for when you consider the level of parallelism in your writing:
1. Don’t overdo it. Parallelism is not required and can get tiresome and arti cial if imposed too stringently. If your writing seems bland, it might be overly parallel and lacking in emphasis. Try an abrupt shift of length or mood to liven things up.
2. E ective parallelism does not mean that every sentence follows the subject,
verb, object (subject complement) model. The most boring writing is often a string of such simple sentences in which the reader is left to guess how the unconnected thoughts might go together or which is more important than the others. Variety of structure within the general guidelines of parallelism can provide readers with important information about the relative weight of ideas, words, and soon. See
order of words and related entries.
3. The use of devices like lists, numbers introducing paragraphs and separate ideas,
and similar methods of drawing attention to a series inherently calls for some attention to parallelism. The things listed, numbered, or otherwise highlighted in this way should be more or less equal in importance. They might also be parallel in grammatical structure, word order, and soon to add force to your thoughts I saw dogs, cats, and rabbits It would not be wrong to write, I saw dogs, felines, and little furry hopping animals with pu ball tails and long ears but a reader might wonder whether you just don’t know the common names of the little furry animals or are being cute in naming or describing them. But do not perform contortions to make things too parallel I saw dogs, cats, and bandicoots.” This example of a series is not parallel, even though each animal has a one-word name given to it, because most readers won’t know what a bandicoot is. Better to say something like I saw dogs and cats. Another animal was the bandicoot, which is….”

4. Agreement of subject, verb, adjective, adverb, and soon is a stricter, more mandatory form of parallelism. Although sentences don’t have to agree across
phrases, clauses, paragraphs, or beyond them invoice, mood, tense, and soon, you certainly should consider whether they would be more e ective if such “agreement”
were imposed.
5. One of the commonest violations of parallelism comes with unequal lengths of elements. The problem is that readers are often surprised or disconcerted to nd long things following short ones or vice versa. The first phrase, clause, or paragraph tends to set expectations about length in particular. The combination of a short lead phrase or clause with longer following ones violates those expectations and can disrupt the comprehension and attentiveness of your reader.
Similarly, a lead paragraph that contains short, simple sentences should probably be followed by more paragraphs of about the same length and containing sentences of approximately the same size and type. Building across several paragraphs to longer (or shorter) sentences will certainly work, as will signaling a change by adding a subheading or some other device to alert readers to an impending shift in length. But unless you prepare readers fora length imbalance or are striving for emphatic e ect by abruptly imbalancing lengths, your writing will probably pro t from having elements of roughly the same length perform roughly the same function.
6. The principles outlined in guideline ve—of preparing for or signaling changes in parallelism in length—can be applied to all other alterations in roughly equivalent structures, tones, and soon. Let your reader know you are moving from something set in the past tense to future tense action make it clear that what follows is no longer active voice description but imperative mood suggestion or command or raise a ag that what follows is subjunctive because it is speculative while what came before was passive because it was scienti c and impersonal. Subheadings,
explanatory sentences, section numbers, and many other devices can be used to make your intentions clear and give your readers abetter chance to assimilate your new direction and tone.
7. Use your imagination. Parallelism is a device for writing well. It can be accomplished or played against in many ways. Think up anew trick your audience
hasn’t seen before.

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