Writing Tips: Parallel Construction

What do lists, “both…and” statements, and “either…or” phrases have in common?

1. When they’re written correctly, they’re all parallel constructions.
2. They’re often written incorrectly.

Parallel construction is key in clear, elegant, enjoyable prose. But our thoughts—and, by extension, our words—rarely spring into existence as well-balanced sentences with perfectly parallel structures.

So let’s talk about how you can identify and improve parallel construction in your writing. It helps if you’re comfortable with grammar lingo, but don’t worry; I include tips you can use even if you don’t have a mind for grammar-related vocabulary and rules.

Defining “Parallel Construction”

I’ll give examples first, then a definition:

• Diamond flew over the river, through the woods, and behind the castle.
• Juan is both fascinated with and afraid of Georgina.
• Both Diamond and Juan are dragons.
• At first, Georgina neither spoke the dragon tongue nor wanted to learn it.
• Sometimes, dragons want to shop rather than hunt for their food.
• Diamond not only tolerated but befriended the humans.

In grammar-nerd speak, a “parallel construction” contains two or more elements of the same grammatical function.

Let’s break that down: Here, “construction” refers to a meaningful combination of words, such as a clause, phrase, sentence, or list. I’ve underlined the parallel constructions in the examples above.

“Elements” are the words and phrases we use to make constructions. They’re the bricks to our buildings. Sometimes, those elements are single words. Sometimes, they’re phrases or even full sentences.

“Same grammatical function” means the elements contribute to the sentence in the same way. Maybe they’re all prepositional phrases used as adverbs, describing where a dragon flew (“over the river, through the woods, and behind the castle”). Maybe they serve as subject nouns (“Both Juan and Diamond“). Or maybe they’re verbs in their infinitive forms (“dragons want to shop rather than hunt for their food”).

Testing for Parallelism

You don’t need special expertise to notice that the following sentence has problems: “I like both walking and my daughter’s first birthday was small.” Nor do you need special expertise to recognize that this next sentence works: “I like both walking and running.” The trick is to transform that subconscious grasp of parallelism into something you use to improve your writing.

When you edit your work, practice identifying parallel constructions—and constructions that should be parallel but aren’t. These tips can help:

1. Listen to your intuition about sentences. If a sentence “sounds” wrong, investigate it. See if you can identify and fix the problem. If a sentence sounds particularly good, see if you can identify what went right.
2. Familiarize yourself with words that signal a construction should be parallel: “and,” “but,” “or,” “both…and,” “rather…than”, “either…or,” “neither…nor,” “more…than,” “not only…but.” These words guide readers to understand the sentence a certain way, and we must write accordingly.
3. Dismantle the sentence. Plug each element of the construction into the same base sentence. See if those smaller sentences make sense. (Demonstrated below.)
4. Consider whether each element can answer the same question. (Demonstrated below.)

Let’s apply these tips to the following sentence:

• Georgina is an accomplished swordswoman, tracker, and diplomat.

The commas and “and” signal a list—also called a “series” in grammar speak. Every style manual and editing handbook I’ve read insists that a list should be parallel, especially if it’s contained within a single sentence. And this example complies: “Swordswoman, tracker, and diplomat” has three elements, all of them nouns, all modified by “an accomplished,” all describing Georgina. In other words, “swordswoman,” “tracker,” and “diplomat” are parallel.

But what if we weren’t so certain? One way to test for parallelism is to dismantle the sentence and see if each element can do the same job by itself:

• Georgina is an accomplished swordswoman.
• Georgina is an accomplished tracker.
• Georgina is an accomplished diplomat.

Yep! We’re safe. Each element makes sense when it’s alone in the sentence. And each element answers the same question: “What is Georgina?”

Contrast this with the following:

❌ Georgina is an accomplished swordswoman, tracker, and good at diplomacy.

I encounter these sentences often in my editing work. The writer begins what appears to be a parallel series and then changes their approach at the end. The result is a confusing mess. Here’s what happens when we try to dismantle it:

• Georgina is an accomplished swordswoman.
• Georgina is an accomplished tracker.
• Georgina is an accomplished good at diplomacy.

Yeah, that’s nonsense. Clearly, “good at diplomacy” can’t fulfill the same function as “tracker” and “swordswoman.” What if we try to start the series after “is” instead?

• Georgina is an accomplished swordswoman.
• Georgina is tracker.
• Georgina is good at diplomacy.

Still a mess. And as a result, it’s unclear. No matter how we try to break the series down, we can’t tell which elements are supposed to be modified by “accomplished” and which ones aren’t. Is Georgina an accomplished tracker or just a generic, adequate tracker?

We could try to fix it by throwing an “a” in before “tracker”:

❌ Georgina is an accomplished swordswoman, a tracker, and good at diplomacy.

The meaning is clearer. It’s obvious that “accomplished” belongs to the first element alone. We could even split this sentence into three respectable smaller sentences:

• Georgina is an accomplished swordswoman.
• Georgina is a tracker.
• Georgina is good at diplomacy.

But the series is still not parallel. The first two elements are whats—nouns—and answer the question “What is Georgina?” The third is an adjectival phrase and needs a different question—perhaps “What kind of person is Georgina?” It’s an inelegant combination.

Worse, it looks like a different kind of construction altogether. Since the second element, “a tracker,” is grammatically parallel to the first, “an accomplished swordswoman,” the sentence could be synonymous with this: “Georgina is an accomplished swordswoman—that is, a tracker—and good at diplomacy.” Granted, that interpretation makes no sense. Readers will likely go with the more sensible interpretation. So if I had to choose between fixing this sentence and meeting a deadline, I might pick meeting the deadline. Just know that in other sentences, the same error can lead to ambiguity.

Editing for Parallel Structure

Often, balancing an unparallel construction is as simple as moving a single word. This is especially true with “neither…nor,” “either…or,” “both…and,” and “not only…but” constructions:

❌ At first, she spoke neither the dragon tongue nor wanted to learn it.

✅ At first, she neither spoke the dragon tongue nor wanted to learn it.

Remember: “neither,” “either,” and “both” always come first in parallel constructions. So if there are two verbs, “neither” goes before the first verb. That way, readers know what they’re getting into.

Another easy fix is swapping one part of speech for another—such as swapping the verb “fears” for the adjective and preposition “afraid of”:

❌ Juan is both fascinated with and fears Georgina.

✅ Juan is both fascinated with and afraid of Georgina.

In the above case, I could have moved “both”: “Juan both is fascinated with and fears Georgina.” “Is fascinated with” and “fears” serve similar enough functions, so the resulting sentence would make sense. It would have passed the dismantling test. But why settle for barely functional when elegantly parallel is available?

Next is another common error, followed by two possible fixes:

❌ Georgina was not only angry but she was dangerous.

✅ Georgina was not only angry but dangerous.

✅ Not only was Georgina angry; she was dangerous.

That second fix may not look as parallel—the verb comes before the subject in this “not only” statement. But the sentence is still grammatically parallel: both elements have a subject (“Georgina” and “she”) and a verb (“was”), with an adjective to boot (“angry” and “dangerous”). If it weren’t for the inverted syntax, both elements would be independent clauses and could form their own sentences: “Georgina was angry.” “She was dangerous.”

In this final example, parallelism can be achieved by adding one small word:

❌ She was as hungry or hungrier than her friend.

✅ She was as hungry as or hungrier than her friend.

Sentences like the above often sneak past writers, even though they go wrong in two ways at once: first, the “as ____ as” construction is left incomplete; second, “as hungry” isn’t parallel with “hungrier than.” (The dismantling test would result in “She was as hungry her friend.”) Remember to double-check sentences that combine “as…as” with “more…than” or “-er…than.”

Rebelling against Parallelism

Sometimes, sentences make sense despite breaking parallelism norms. In those cases, why bother editing them into compliance? I’d argue there are two reasons:

1. Clear communication is the first priority, but it’s not the only priority. If we want people to read what we write, we need to make it pleasant and enjoyable. I compare it to music: If a singer keeps straying off-key, we will still understand their words, but we’ll be distracted and turned off by the wrong notes. Similarly, if text often breaks parallelism-related guidelines, it’s less likely to keep readers engaged.
2. The meaning may not be as clear as the writer thinks. We are often too close to our own writing to be sure our meaning is clear. That’s where conventional syntax—including parallel syntax—comes in handy. We don’t have to rely solely on our ability to anticipate readers’ interpretations, not if we use syntax that our readers are used to navigating.

That said, I’ve seen accomplished authors bend parallelism rules—whether because they genuinely preferred a sentence unparallel or because they had to prioritize more important revisions. You can do the same. It’s a matter of intentionality: If you know the “rules” of parallelism and syntax in general, you can use and bend them at will to craft more elegant, creative, understandable prose.

Links and References

Want a professional’s help using parallelism throughout your manuscript? I handle this and similar matters during copyediting (fiction, nonfiction) and line editing (fiction).

I admit, I had to double-check my use of grammar lingo in this post. These sources helped:

• The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed. (5.242–5.245)
• “Sections 5.212–15 in the Spotlight,” CMOS Shop Talk
• The Copyeditor’s Handbook, 4th ed., by Amy Einsohn and Marilyn Schwartz (pp. 382–384, 485)
• Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer (pp. 88–90, 95–96)