Grammar Rule of the Week……..
Parallelism
This issue comes up most often in lists, for example: My friend made salsa, guacamole, and brought chips. If you start out by having made cover the first two items, it has to cover subsequent ones as well. To fix, you usually have to do just a little rewriting. Thus, My friend made salsa and guacamole and brought chips to go with them.
In writing, parallelism refers to balance and equality. In order for the reader to understand what the writer means, the words must make sense in time and space. If you start talking about one thing one way, you can’t – mid-sentence – switch to talking about something else a different way.
This issue comes up most often in lists, for example: My friend made salsa, guacamole, and brought chips. If you start out by having made cover the first two items, it has to cover subsequent ones as well. To fix, you usually have to do just a little rewriting. Thus, My friend made salsa and guacamole and brought chips to go with them.
In writing, parallelism refers to balance and equality. In order for the reader to understand what the writer means, the words must make sense in time and space. If you start talking about one thing one way, you can’t – mid-sentence – switch to talking about something else a different way.
Example of faulty parallelism:
I will stop working on my speech and went to the movies.
I will stop working on my speech and went to the movies.
This sentence isn’t parallel because the verb tenses don’t make chronological sense.
Rewrite:
I stopped working on my speech and went to the movies.
rules-you-really-should-pay-attention-toer rule of the Week
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