For example, this sentence is grammatically incorrect: “She ran, danced, and was watching T.V.” Instead, it should say “She ran, danced, and watched T.V.” Here, the word “was” is removed and the “-ing’” ending is changed to “-ed.” If it seems like there is an example in one’s writing, the easiest thing to do is change the verb tense.

Often, reading one’s writing out loud can make any mistakes, like faulty parallelism, evident. It’s worth it to take the time to fix these mistakes as it makes one’s writing sound far more professional. But, with some practice, it is just as easy to correct the mistake and retain all the content one initially had. This is the easiest and fastest way to make a sentence parallel. First, the writer might remove the section of the sentence that is ungrammatical. There are a few ways in which one might fix an example of faulty parallelism. The parallel versions are listed in the previous section. None of the above sentences should be used, despite the fact that they might initially seem correct. My cat always spends the day watching birds and asleep.They are not going to hire an employee who is always late, lazy, and acting unprofessionally.She is looking for someone who is consistent, easy-going, and dependable on time.

I like running, to go swim, and hiking.

If so, picking them out and altering them so that the sentence is parallel can be helpful in one’s understanding of this grammatical error. It’s important to analyze these sentences and see if the “faulty” parts stand out. These are contrived examples, meaning that they were created for this specific exercise.

My cat always spends the day watching birds and sleeping.īelow readers will find a few examples of faulty parallelism.

They are not going to hire an employee who is always late, lazy, and unprofessional.

She is looking for someone who is consistent, easy-going, and dependable.

Below are a few examples of parallel sentence structures: Parallel structures keep the sentence consistent. It uses repetition and the same grammatical structure between lines of a short story, novel, poem, or play. It can also help imbue a piece with pattern and rhythm, depending on how it’s used. Parallel sentences use grammatically consistent structures and often, the same structure stretching over multiple lines. This is the preferred way in which sentences are arranged. In order to better understand what faulty parallelism is, it’s helpful to have a solid understanding of parallelism. It can lower the standard of the entire paper or presentation. It’s a feature of most forms of writing that should be corrected. When looking for examples of faulty parallelism, it’s best to read one’s writing out loud. The listed items do not conform to the same structure. Faulty parallelism occurs, usually in lists, when the verb tenses or other parts of the sentence do not correspond.

Parallel structure example