Revising and Editing

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

Parallel Structure with Prepositions and Subordinating Conjunctions

Function words such as prepositions (by, to) and subordinating conjunctions (that, because) indicate the grammatical nature of the word group to follow. Use parallel structures to make the meaning clear.

Prepositions in parallelism

Example:

	Many soccer players want to transfer to a city they know well or a high paying team.
	Many soccer players want to transfer to a city they know well or to a high paying team.

Adding the to makes the meaning clearer.

Subordinating conjunctions in parallelism

Example:

	My father told me that buying a car was too costly and it would keep me penniless.
	My father told me that buying a car was too costly and that maintaining it would keep me penniless.

Adding that maintaining makes the meaning clearer.

Source

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