What Is Faulty Parallelism

The Grammar Shape Problem

Imagine a recipe that reads: 'Chop the onions, dicing the peppers, and you should mince the garlic.' Nothing factually wrong there, but the instructions clash because each one uses a different grammatical shape — one imperative, one gerund, one full clause. Faulty parallelism is exactly that problem in ordinary writing: when items that should match grammatically or logically simply don't share the same form.

It appears most often in lists, comparisons, and paired phrases like 'not only...but also' or 'either...or.' A simple example: 'She likes hiking, to swim, and reading.' Three activities, three different structures. The fix: 'She likes hiking, swimming, and reading.' The meaning stays the same. The readability improves dramatically.

Common Hideouts

• Bulleted and numbered lists in documents
• Resume bullet points and job descriptions
• Sentences using 'than' or 'as' for comparisons
• Correlative pairs like 'not only...but also' or 'either...or'
• Prepositions like 'for' or 'with' that group multiple items

Mismatched vs. Fixed Examples

Manual Editing Method

1. 1
   Circle every conjunction and correlative pair in the sentence — look for 'and,' 'or,' 'but,' 'nor,' 'not only...but also,' 'either...or'

2. 2
   Box the actual parts being joined by that conjunction — not the whole clause, just the piece that's supposed to match on both sides

3. 3
   Name each boxed part's grammatical form out loud — gerund, infinitive, noun phrase, full clause

4. 4
   If the named forms don't match, revise one side until they do

Analysis Breakdown

The Fix Applied

Applying the manual method: Circle 'and.' Box the three items: 'hiring staff,' 'training programs,' 'to oversee the budget.' Name them — gerund phrase, noun phrase, infinitive phrase. Three different forms, so revise to match. The corrected version reads: 'hiring staff, training programs, and overseeing the budget.' Now three gerund phrases, genuinely parallel.

This method works even in complex sentences where the parallelism problem isn't immediately obvious. The act of naming each grammatical form out loud forces you to confront the mismatch directly. Once you see it, the fix is usually straightforward — pick one form and make everything match it.

Beyond Lists: Parallelism in Sentences

Faulty parallelism isn't limited to lists. It appears in comparisons, where mismatched structures create subtle confusion. 'The city's population grew faster than the suburbs' implies population is being compared to suburbs themselves rather than to the suburbs' population. The parallel fix: 'The city's population grew faster than the suburbs' population.'

Correlative constructions like 'not only...but also,' 'either...or,' and 'neither...nor' are prime parallelism traps. Writers often structure the first part one way and the second another, creating unintended emphasis or genuine confusion. 'She not only sings beautifully but also plays the guitar' is parallel; 'She not only sings beautifully but also the guitar' is not.