The Learning Commons

Parallelism

Parallelism is the condition in which two or more words, phrases, or clauses that have the same function (subject, verb, or object) must also have the same form (noun, verb).

Examples:

• NOT PARALLEL:
  Baseball and playing football are the nation's favorite sports.
  (Baseball is a noun, but playing football is a gerund phrase)

• FIXED PARALLEL:
  Baseball and football are the nation's favorite sports.
  (Baseball and football are both nouns)

• NOT PARALLEL:
  My dog likes to eat pizza, sleeping all day, and learn new tricks.
  (To eat is an infinitive, sleeping is a gerund, and learn is an infinitive without the "to," since it uses the "to" in the initial infinitive "to eat.")

• FIXED PARALLEL:
  My dog likes to eat pizza, sleep all day, and learn new tricks.
  (All are now infinitives)

Please Notice: Since parallel elements have the same form and grammatical function, we cannot compound nouns with adjectives, or finite verbs with infinite verbs, or phrases with clauses. Parallel elements must be expressed in parallel construction: noun and noun; verb, verb, and verb.

The elements in a parallel construction may be words, phrases, clauses, or sentences:

• Words: I love Beethoven, Mozart, and Johnny Cash.
• Phrases: I love to water-ski, to swim, and to surf.
• Clauses (even independent ones): I came; I saw; I conquered.

I hope you will tie your shoes, get a haircut, and shave your beard.

Grammarland

Clauses

• practice

Apostrophes & Possessives

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Sentence Fragments

• practice

Dangling Modifiers

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Coordination & Subordination

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Commas, Dashes, & Parentheses

• practice

Parallelism

• practice

Subject/Verb Agreement

• practice

Semicolons

• practice

Comma Splices and Fused Sentences

• practice