Parallelism, also called parallel structure, isn’t something most readers consciously notice. However, un-parallel structure might make reading difficult, even if readers can’t pinpoint what’s wrong. Our job as writers is to make reading as easy as possible. Parallel structure gives readers a road map of how the rest of the article will sound. This helps them get “in the zone” for reading our content. But what is it?
Parallelism is using the same grammatical forms in a sentence.
At its simplest, parallelism can be exemplified by this sentence, paraphrased from the comic: “She likes playing tennis, watching movies, and riding her bike.” Each verb in this sentence is written in the same form.
The more complex issues with parallel structure happen in headings and more complicated lists. One of the easiest ways to explain parallel structure is to use examples, so buckle up. Ready?
Check out this road trip checklist that does not use parallel structure:
- Check Battery.
- Rotate and fill the tires,
- Replacing the Air Filter
- Check Fluid Levels, and
- Get an oil change
Here are just a few of the problems in this (over-exaggerated) bad example: inconsistent capitalization, mismatched word usage, and improper punctuation. Without parallel structure, this list is like driving a lemon during rush hour — clunky and slow-moving. But have no fear! Using this idea of a road trip checklist, we’re going to explore three types of parallel structure that will have readers zipping through our content: titles and headings, bulleted and numbered lists, and in-line lists.
Titles and Headings
First, let’s write a title and the section headings for an article about what readers should do before embarking on a road trip.
5 Things to Do before a Road Trip
Based on the way the title is written, readers will infer that each heading will tell them what to do. Also, since the title specifically mentions the number of things, numbering the headings will make the parallel structure even more cohesive.
1. Check Battery
2. Rotate and Fill Tires
3. Replace Air Filter
4. Check Fluid Levels
5. Change Oil
In these headings, none of the nouns have a preceding article. If only some of them did, like the list in the introduction, that would signal a lack of parallel structure. However, if all the nouns had articles, the structure would be parallel.
At the end of the day, parallel structure is that simple: each heading is written the same way as the others. This lets the readers breeze through headings without having to slow down to figure out what we mean.
Tip: for headings, parallelism also includes things like punctuation and capitalization.
Bulleted and Numbered Lists
Now, let’s say we are writing an article for college students who just bought their first car, and using a pre-trip checklist is just one section of that article. In this case, the checklist would be mentioned in the heading, and the list would be introduced by, you guessed it, an introductory phrase.
Closed
If the introductory phrase is closed, it ends in a colon, which makes the list fairly simple.
Follow a Pre-trip Checklist
Having your own car means freedom. But before you speed off to Florida for Spring Break (road trip!), make sure to do the following things to ensure a safe journey:
· check battery
· rotate and fill tires
· clean or replace air filters
· check and top off fluid levels
· change oil
In this case, since the introductory phrase ends with a colon, the list follows the same rules headings would, except that nothing needs to be capitalized or punctuated. If the introductory phrase had said “make sure to do the following five things,” the list would have been numbered.
Open
On the other hand, if the introductory phrase is open-ended and doesn’t use a colon, the bulleted list becomes a bit more complicated.
Follow a Pre-trip Checklist
Having your own car means freedom. But before you speed off to Florida for Spring Break (road trip!), make sure you
· check the car battery
· rotate and fill the tires
· clean or replace the air filter
· check and top off all fluid levels
· change the oil
Since the introductory phrase is open-ended, each bullet point must form a complete, correct sentence when joined with the introductory phrase: “But before you speed off to Florida for Spring Break (road trip!), make sure you check the car battery.” Also, an open-ended list should use bullet points instead of numbers.
As long as the list points are parallel to the introductory phrase and to each other, readers will keep moving right on through our articles without getting stuck in a structural traffic jam.
Tip: you are welcome to use end punctuation in an open-ended list if you want, but it isn’t required.
In-line Lists
The rules of parallel headings and bulleted lists also pave the way for parallel in-line lists. Basically, in-line lists use the same rules as open-ended bulleted lists and, of course, require proper punctuation.
Having your own car means freedom. But before you speed off to Florida for Spring Break (road trip!), make sure you check the car battery, rotate and fill the tires, clean or replace the air filter, check and top off all fluid levels, and change the oil.
Even though “get an oil change” is a more common phrase, it isn’t parallel with the other items in the list, which is why we’ve used “change the oil” instead. With in-line lists, all verbs should use the same tense and form (remember the comic?). Here is an example of another, still parallel, way of writing the same list.
Having your own car means freedom. But before you speed off to Florida for Spring Break (road trip!), make sure you get the car battery checked, the tires rotated and filled, the air filter cleaned or replaced, all fluid levels checked and topped off, and the oil changed.
Since the verb “get” applies to all the things in this list, we only need to use it once at the beginning. Just like with open-ended lists, each item in the list should form a complete sentence when joined with the introductory phrase.
Tip: The verb form you choose is up to you and can change with the style and tone of your article – but, as always, consistency is key.
Because the difference between parallel and un-parallel structure can be as small as one word, it’s easy to see why parallelism (or the lack thereof) sometimes goes unnoticed. And while readers may never be able to name what makes great articles so easy to read, writers know that using parallel structure helps everything run more smoothly.
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9 Comments
This is a great article. I never even knew what parallelism in writing was until I started writing for WD. This will save you newbies a few revision notices if you get the hang of it.
I found an article online when I was having trouble with it that explained it pretty well but this article is going to fine-tune my understanding of it. I do think it helps the direction of my writing and keeps the articles I write more focused and cohesive now because of attention to parallelism in both subheadings and bulleted lists.
No worries–I didn’t know what parallelism was either, until I started working here! I’m glad this was a helpful article.
This is pretty basic stuff. Anyone who managed to graduate from high school in seven years or less should know and utilize this concept. That said, it’s true that many “writers” as well as writers, even those with long experience in the business, don’t seem to get it. I can’t help but notice, however, that in this mostly well-written article/post, we see such sentences as “Now, let’s say we are writing an article for college students who just bought their first car…” My first reaction was that the one thing I need to tell them is how to not fight over that car, especially if there are dozens or even hundreds of such students (“Hey, everyone pitch in fifty bucks, and we’ll all have some wheels!”).
The point I’m making here is that in these days of Twitfool, FacePlant, and a general (possibly resultant) illiteracy among the population, virtually EVERYONE’S writing sucks. What that means is that most people aren’t going to notice, let alone care about, bad writing. I write well because it’s easier for me than writing badly. Does that mean that the marketplace does or is ever going to recognize my skills? Not bloody likely–not when Gupta from Calcutta is willing to write “English” for 0.0001 cents/word. Oh very yes.
What we need to focus on when working here is ways to make “dumpster rental” unique and interesting. We’re not cordon bleu chefs; we’re burger-flippers (and the pay matches the analogy).
Writers come from very diverse backgrounds. Depending on the school and the study, writers encounter and learn many different styles of writing. AP, Chicago, some custom preference a professor or company invented, etc. And there are a lot of mediums now that allow us to write whatever we want however we want, with no thought of writing “best practices.” All of these varied styles and mediums can get jumbled–especially after having written for many different places (including a website like WD that has no style guide).
There is a strong need in this “new writing” world for solid writers who can capture an audience and anticipate a reader’s needs. Most people seeking information online aren’t looking for 500 or 1000 words written in Tweet or textspeak. They want helpful information and they want it quickly, so the better an article is written, the more effective the article is. Good writing is not a lost art and reminders of writing “best practices” are very helpful to those striving to produce great content.
Thanks for the article. The writing tips that have been posted on this blog are actually quite useful.
Regarding the burger flipping analogy… First of all, although pay varies widely depending on where you are and what you do, according to the BLS, head chefs make an average of 42k per year while freelance writers make an average of 55k. Based on my experience of doing this for five years and my husband’s experience of being a gourmet chef for 20+ years, that’s about what we earn. Actually, he earns a little less… to the point that he just quit his job to stay home with the kids because I earn so much more than him. (not that any of this really addresses your analogy).
We have played with this chef analogy a lot. I certainly don’t feel that we are burger flippers (not that there is anything wrong with that). Rather, we are more like gourmet cooks in a small local establishment. It’s not the French Laundry, but it satisfies the creative itch and requires a lot of skill. (If you are not giving yourself credit for how much skill this job takes, you are shortchanging yourself.)
And readers absolutely do notice bad writing, even if they can’t articulate why it’s bad or why it flows well. Furthermore, if there weren’t a market for our words, we wouldn’t be here… There wouldn’t be tons of other content sites paying about the same rates. If all the words could be spun with software or outsourced to ESL speakers, they would be.
Also, I wouldn’t hasten to say what anyone did or didn’t learn in HS. I graduated at the top of my class, finished college with honors in three years, and I actually know very little. Being good at school can really be a hindrance as far as picking anything up goes…
Have you ever heard a Joan Didion interview? She is one of our finest living writers, and yet, if you question her about style, grammar, structure, she has no idea… she just kinda shrugs off the analysis and says she didn’t really think about it.
And P.S., take the quotes off writers… we are writers. We sit at computers all day and write stuff. I struggled with claiming the title for a long time, until I realized I deserve it, and it wasn’t doing anyone any favors to be self-deprecating about what I do. Occasionally, I say that I vomit words on the interweb for cash, but mostly, I am okay with saying I am a writer, and everyone who works here should be willing to take the label.
Hi Kari,
I personally find the writing aspect of this job not at all challenging, but that’s just me. What I do find challenging is getting enough work to keep a roof over my head–and that applies to work from other sources, not just WD. As I said, the market cheerfully accepts bad writing, while paying a pittance for it, because most consumers/customers of writing services don’t know the difference. True, a person with some degree of sophistication in the language might sense there’s something a little bit off about a sentence or paragraph, like a piece of cheese that’s been in the fridge too long, but he/she won’t be able to put his finger on it. In any case, the vast majority of the time, bad writing is regarded by the marketplace as “good enough,” which makes sense when you consider what internet writing is supposed to do–lengthen that three seconds that a webpage has before the user clicks away from it.
I, and presumably many of the other writers here and elsewhere, possess a fairly rare skill that has taken years to develop. I can think of no other profession, however, wherein skill, care, and expertise have so little market value. The only real recourse a skilled writer has is to find one of those tiny, tiny, tiny niche markets where good writing IS valued.
BTW, Didion obviously knows the rules and methodology of good writing, but for some reason seems unable or unwilling to articulate them. However, that’s not the same thing as not knowing them in the first place. Some writers don’t know any of the jargon but do follow the rules. To return to the point of the post, a writer who has a “feel” for when the pseudo-rule of parallel structure is “violated” will naturally avoid awkward sentence structure; the clumsy writer is unlikely to be cured anytime soon, especially if said clumsy writer has been writing and selling internet ad copy for the last several years and getting paid for it (you can certainly surmise this by scrutinizing just about ANY commercial website). I guess what it comes down to is that I find it kind of appalling that anyone needs to be told about parallel structure and the other rudiments of writing. It’s like having to tell a professional truck driver which pedal makes the truck go and which makes it stop.
I think that a good WD post (that gets a 4/5, presumably) is better than a mediocre WD post (even if it also gets a high score), simply to the extent that I prefer to produce good rather than simply adequate work. There are and have been times, though, here and elsewhere, where I’ve felt like a sucker for paying so much attention and care to writing that pays peanuts that I lower my hourly earnings to, well, burger-flipper levels.
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