November 2021
View our original newsletter here: Parallel Structure
Parallel Structure: 1, 2, 3 not 1, A, Blue
Is the grammar in your bullets and lists correct? Whenever you create a series, whether vertical (bullets) or horizontal (sentences), the items in those lists need to match!
Parallel structure not only maintains consistency in your lists, sentences, and bullets, it also ensures your audience knows what you mean and trusts you.
Parallel structure involves using the same pattern of words in a series or list so that each item in that list uses the same grammatical form: all nouns, or all verbs, or all gerunds; all one word, a phrase, a sentence, etc.
Quick Tip: With parallel structure think 1, 2, and 3 -- not 1, A, and blue.
Don't Just Take Our Word For It
See what other industry experts are saying about parallel structure...
Parallel Structure: Make Your Content More Powerful and Precise
"...Content creators are masters of all things messaging, but sometimes we forget to follow important grammatical cues. Or, maybe we’re following these cues unknowingly and we can do a better job being consistent and purposeful as we use these techniques. Parallel structure brings more power and precision to your content...."
"Parallel sentence elements in grammar are just like parallel lines in geometry: they face the same direction and never meet. More precisely, in grammar, it’s less about meeting and more about balance. Parallelism in grammar is defined as two or more phrases or clauses in a sentence that have the same grammatical structure...."
Check out this great visual guide on parallel structure from Grammar.net!
Go Further
Want to know where we got this tip? A variety of resources. But the book Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer gives some great information about parallel structure and is a sharp, funny grammar guide you’ll actually want to read.
“We all write, all the time: books, blogs, emails. Lots and lots of emails. And we all want to write better. Benjamin Dreyer is here to help...Chockful of advice, insider wisdom, and fun facts, this book will prove to be invaluable to everyone who wants to shore up their writing skills, mandatory for people who spend their time editing and shaping other people’s prose, and—perhaps best of all—an utter treat for anyone who simply revels in language."
Quote of the Month
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way...”
―A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens