From the course: Advanced Grammar

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Parallel structure

Parallel structure

From the course: Advanced Grammar

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Parallel structure

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- [Instructor] Parallelism means structuring similar parts of a sentence the same way. For example, "Alex designed the marketing campaign "for the WoofRider 3000, "developed a strategy "to engage the audience at the trade show, "and planned a live demonstration." Each element of the series in that sentence uses the same grammatical structure, creating symmetry and flow. Here's another example. "Each dog will receive encouragement, water, and treats." Again, each thing the dog will receive is grammatically the same, a noun. Parallelism is a powerful technique, because our brains crave order and patterns. Parallelism satisfies this craving and also makes ideas more memorable. For example, consider this famous parallel quotation: "I came, I saw, I conquered." When parallelism is missing, readers may sense something is off, even if they can't pinpoint the problem. Take this example. "Alex intends to demonstrate the steering, the braking, "and headlights on the scooter." Since the sentence…

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