Free Custom «Parallel Structure» Essay Paper

A.    Your vs. you're

• You're the only one who can drive your grandfather's car.

It's vs. its

• It's now time for the tiger to be taken back to its homeland.

Affect vs. effect

• The mayor's decision will affect many new businesses in this city.
• One effect of global warming is the melting of the polar ice caps.

Moreover vs. however

These are transitional devices that are used to indicate the continuity of ideas flowing from one sentence to another in a paragraph.

Moreover is used to as a means of including additional information that helps build an idea further within a paragraph.

• The teacher explained to the students how plants breathe in the previous class. Moreover, she helped them perform an experiment that clarified to them what she had just taught.

However is used to compare two contrasting ideas.

• John is a very good basketball player. However, his performance in class does not please his coach.

B. Come up with 3 sentences to illustrate correct use of parallel structure

(1)   Mike's stage performance will include some singing, acting and dancing.

(2)   Alice was very happy because she was told that she could organize a party, that she could drive her dad's car and that she could go visit her cousin in California.

(3)   The young man was employed to perform the following tasks; water the flowers, maw the lawn and repair the fence.

Comments

Not parallel: We like sports, hiking and taking the dog for walks.

Parallel: We like sports, hiking and dog-walking. OR We like playing sports, hiking the trails and walking the dog.

The first sentence is not parallel because the rhythm of the sentence was broken by "taking the dog for a walk". In the first parallel statement the first item is not a gerund while the succeeding items are. This is still fine because though the repetition of sound lacks in this statement, the words still have some rhythm that make them sound parallel. The second statement is much better because it has repetition of sound and a rhythm that makes it sound parallel. 

C. Write a paragraph to illustrate the elements of a paragraph

The internet, also known as World Wide Web, has grown to become a very important means of communication in the modern world. This can be attributed to the fact that it provides a wider range of services, at more cost effective prices as compared to other means of communication that preceded it.  Using it, one is able to communicate with various groups of people using a wide variety of service options available such as email, websites and instant messaging services. Moreover, most of the traditional communication services such as television and telephony are increasingly being replaced by better alternatives available on the internet such as video conferencing and video on demand services.  

D. (optional) Give an example of;

1. Euphemism

"The stray dog was put to sleep." is used instead of, ''the stray dog was killed''

2. Dying metaphor

He has been chosen to represent his campus at the convention and he is so over the moon about it.

The metaphor "over the moon" is used to show how he was overjoyed.