Framingham State College The Writing Guide by CASA Plagiarism Revising and Editing Drafting Researching Prewriting

 

Revising and Editing

Reconsidering your ideas, examining your paragraphs, checking your style and grammar.

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Parallel Structure in Pairs
Coordinating Conjunctions, Correlative Conjunctions, and Comparison

When expressing many ideas in pairs, it is important to use a similar grammatical form to emphasize their relationship.

Use of coordinating conjunctions in a parallel structure

If you use words such as and, but, or, nor, for, so, and yet (also known as coordinating conjunctions) to link ideas of the same value, you should keep the same pattern of words after and before the coordinating conjunction. Ideas which are closely parallel in content should be parallel in grammatical form as well.

Example:
Incorrect
 What I like best about Framingham State College are the small classes, the faculty members, and it has an academic support center.
Correct
 What I like best about Framingham State College are the small classes, the faculty members, and the academic support center.


The second sentence is correct because the words in the series follow the same pattern: article, adjective, and noun.


Use of correlative conjunction in a parallel structure

If you use words that always appear in pairs, such as either…or, neither…nor, not only…but also, both …and (also known as correlative conjunctions), they should be followed by the same pattern. If neither is followed by a gerund (the -ing form of a verb that is used as a noun), nor should be followed by a gerund to be parallel.

Example:
Incorrect
 My mom‘s friend told me either to call later or leave a message.
Correct
 My mom’s friend told me either to call later or to leave a message.


To call, which follows either, should be balanced with to leave, which follows or.


Comparison in a parallel structure

When you make comparisons with than or as, the items that are being compared should be expressed in parallel grammatical structure.

Example:
Incorrect
 It is less stressful to start your homework as soon as possible than doing it the night before the due day. 
Correct
 It is less stressful to start your homework as soon as possible than to do it the night before the due day.


To start is balanced with to do.

 

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Source

Hacker, Diana. A Writer’s Reference. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007.