Parallelism or parallel construction refers to the maintenance of the same grammatical structure throughout a sentence or paragraph. It has the effect of making your writing clear, balanced, and easy to follow.
In literature and rhetoric, it is referred to as isocolon. Let’s take a look at an example.
Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World (1910):
. . . in everything worth having, even in every pleasure, there is a point of pain or tedium that must be survived, so that the pleasure may revive and endure. The joy of battle comes after the first fear of death; the joy of reading Virgil comes after the bore of learning him; the glow of the sea–bather comes after the icy shock of the sea bath; and the success of the marriage comes after the failure of the honeymoon.
In the highlighted part of the passage, we have three independent clauses all structured using the same grammatical form. It has an impressive rhetorical effect. This effect is based on the writer taking three things that are highly dissimilar and making them seem the same.
Isocolon or parallelism can also be used to tell a coherent story or narrative that is easy to follow. This is true especially when explaining complicated events of history. Let's look at an example of W.E.B. Du Bois explaining the rise of Booker T. Washington's prominence:
W. E. B DuBois, The Soul of Black Folks (1903):
Easily the most striking thing in the history of the American Negro since 1876 is the ascendancy of Mr. Booker T. Washington. It began at the time when war memories and ideals were rapidly passing; a day of astonishing commercial development was dawning; a sense of doubt and hesitation overtook the freedmen’s sons,—then it was that his leading began.
Practical uses of parallelism
However, the case of the passage from Chesterton doesn’t represent the everyday use of parallel construction. It is a type of highly literary and rhetorical form of writing.
Nonetheless, parallelism has many practical advantages when used in more ordinary academic writing. In the following, we take a look ta how you can use parallel construction in your academic writing to make it more readable and clear.
“I like jogging and hiking” is correct as the two verbs are in the exact form. However, if I were to say, “I like jogging and to take hikes,” this would be incorrect. The same can be said for a wide variety of examples.
The principle to remember is that like should go with like. This means for example, adjectives go with adjectives, verbs go with verbs, and nouns go with nouns. This would make for writing that is balanced and easy to read and follow.
The table below provides a few examples:
Parallel structure | Nonparallel Structure |
I like to hike, read, and listening to music is a hobby of mine. | I like to hike, read, and listen to music. |
Susan likes group members who are polite, organized, and who know how to work well with others. | Susan likes group members who are polite, organized, and collaborative. |
His main job was to take notes, report to his supervisor, and doing weekly presentations. | His main job was to take notes, report to his supervisor, and do weekly presentations. |
Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2024, November 06). Parallelism. |
Comentarios