Parallel structure | Syntax | Khan Academy

Hello grammarians. Hello Rosie. Hello Paige. Hi David. Hi David. Today all three of us are going to be talking about parallel structure.

And I've always had trouble spelling the word "parallel," but Rosie pointed out something just before we started recording that is blowing my mind.

Rosie: How do you spell "parallel"?

Well, it's fun because the two L's that are together in the word are together in the middle of the word. Look at that! They're parallel. That's all. It's fine. That's just, that's amazing.

Parallel structure is less a consideration of grammar; it's really more about style, right? Parallel structure basically means that when you're making some kind of list in a sentence, if you're using a series of verbs, if you're using a series of nouns, any series of words, they should all roughly line up with one another.

So let's say I was an outdoorsman and I said, "I love fishing, skiing, and rock climbing." Each one of these is a gerund, right? It is the -ing form of verb. We're using it as a noun, and this sentence exhibits parallel structure.

But you know, sometimes you'll see a sentence that'll mess that up, right? So let's say you were editing someone's personal statement, an athlete's personal statement, and they said, "I love fishing, skiing, and to climb rocks." Now there's nothing grammatically incorrect about this sentence; it makes sense. It is legal in the way that it is composed, but stylistically, it just doesn't harmonize.

So this is not parallel.

But this is some other things to look out for to make sure you're making a sentence parallel: if everything is active voice or passive voice, infinitive verbs versus other forms of verbs like "to eat" versus "eating," and a string of individual modifiers like adjectives versus larger phrases.

Let's put that into action, okay?

So, active versus passive voice. An example, if we're not going to have parallel structure would be something like, "The cake was baked, frosted, and I put sprinkles on it." So what we're saying here is that here is a passive thing that happened to the cake: the cake was baked. Here's another passive thing that happens to the cake: the cake was frosted by someone else, and then that someone else comes in and Paige says, "I put sprinkles on it."

But if we're going to assume that "sprinkled" is now a verb that means to be covered in sugary cake decorations, we would say: "The cake was baked, frosted, and sprinkled," or "decorated with sprinkles." But I kind of like "sprinkle."

So that's active versus passive.

We've already covered infinitive versus other verb forms, so that's, you know, skiing—well, that's "to ski" versus "skiing." So this is what we call an infinitive form, and this is another form that's called the gerund. So make sure to keep those separate in your lists.

And then lists of individual terms versus longer phrases. So if you are describing something with a string of adjectives, be careful when you follow it up with a longer phrase.

For example, "Sharks are large, damp, and dangerous." Those are all just short individual modifiers, as opposed to "Sharks are large, damp, and not to be trifled with."

And look, again, we're not saying this is not a grammatical sentence. It is! And sometimes you may want to break parallel structure in order to have some sort of particular effect. If you are trying to draw attention to this last element, then yeah, you might want to break parallel structure.

But we want to make you aware that there is just a sort of general tendency towards making your sentences harmonious in this way: "baked, frosted, and sprinkled." "Large, damp, and dangerous."

You know, and then when you want to have access to that ability to really draw attention to that last element, then you can say, "Ah, you know what? I'm gonna make this perpendicular."

Is that—is perpendicularity a thing that I just made up right now?

Yes. Are we going with it? Maybe. Yeah. Do we like it? Yeah.

Not parallel. It's not parallel.

Well, I suppose that about covers parallel structure. So for one last time with Paige, you can learn anything, Dave it out!

Rosie out!

Paige out!

You've been a wonderful intern, Paige. We'll miss you.

Paige: Thank you! I'll miss you too.