I used to think that syntax was boring and that you only truly mastered a language by knowing fancy and sophisticated turns of phrase. I was delusional.

While doing my CPE writing course, I realized how you can jazz up your essay simply by playing with syntax. Ever since, I’ve been obsessed with nice syntactic structures. Today, I want us to take a closer look at parallel structures.

First off, parallelism refers to a series of words or phrases used in the same grammatical structure. The purpose of this literary tool is to enhance readability, coherence, and cohesion while showing that the ideas are equally important.

For example:
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
At first glance, parallel structures seem easy to employ, but there is a catch to be aware of.


Example of a poor sentence:
To build a backyard garden, my dad purchased some seeds, lots of fertilizer, and a grass mower.

Parallel structure:
To build a backyard garden, my dad purchased seeds, fertilizer, and a grass mower.
As I mentioned earlier, parallel structures show the similarity of structure between components. This means if you use adjectives in a list, you must place them before all the nouns or omit them altogether.


Example of a poor sentence:
Kate likes dancing and to draw pictures.

Parallel structure:
Kate likes dancing and drawing pictures.
Both components should use the "-ing" ending.


Example of a poor sentence:
My friend was kind, funny, and a source of inspiration.

Parallel structure:
My friend was kind, funny, and inspiring.
In the first sentence, we have two adjectives and a noun.


However, we remember that the grammar structure needs to be consistent, so we use three adjectives to form a correct parallel structure.

Poor sentence:
My professor told me to revise my essay and that I should pay particular attention to punctuation.

This sentence is a bit out of balance due to the incorrect use of the subordinate clause conjunction. To make it more eloquent and concise, we can tweak it by using an infinitive instead:

Parallel structure:
My professor told me to revise my essay and to pay particular attention to punctuation.

You’ve just had a small dose of beautiful syntax! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.