There is a beauty in these railway tracks.
It’s not just about the scenic landscapes they take us through, but the way they are structured too. The mathematical precision behind their ‘parallel’ architecture is what gives traction to the long, serpentine body of the train to slide over them at tremendous speed. Imagine a micrometer deviation in the architecture. You don’t need to fancy the consequence.
The lack of parallelism in the language – especially when we design e-learning courses – may not spell catastrophe of such enormous proportions. But, it definitely crucifies the beauty of aesthetics. For sure!
Consider this. “The Search command on the Start menu locates the document, and you can then open it. Double-clicking a document icon opens a document” vis-à-vis “Use the Search command on the Start menu to locate the document, and then open it. Double-click the document icon to open a document.” This is about parallelism in lists.
Now, consider this. “Clicking Start, you point to Settings, and then click Printers. In the Printers window, the printer that you want to share should be selected. On the File menu, click Sharing.” vis-à-vis “Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Printers. In the Printers window, click the printer that you want to share. On the File menu, click Sharing.” This is about parallelism in procedures.
And, consider this. “The User’s Guide contains common tasks, visual overviews, a catalog of features, and illustrated glossary of terms.” vis-à-vis “The User’s Guide contains common tasks, visual overviews, a catalog of features, and an illustrated glossary of terms.” (Parallel objects, with the articles added.) This is about parallelism in sentences.
As we can see, MSTP wonderfully articulates the effect parallelism could have on the sentence constructs. “Parallelism is ensuring that elements of sentences that are similar in purpose are also similar in structure. Parallel structures enhance readability by making the content more predictable. If, for instance, the first item in a list begins with an imperative verb, all the items in the list should begin with an imperative verb.”
Going by MSTP’s remarkable delineation on Parallelism, we could see that the grace of the language cruising on the rails of parallelism is the same as that of the train sliding on its tracks.
Written by Nirmal Ranganathan
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Published on 20-Jul-2013
