Revising Approaches — Part 2

Right Kinds of Rhythm

Often unexploited, a key to eloquence lies in creating parallel constructions. Wikipedia says,

In grammar, parallelism, also known as parallel structure or parallel construction, is a balance within one or more sentences of similar phrases or clauses that have the same grammatical structure. The application of parallelism affects readability and may make texts easier to process.

The effect of parallelism is much more beautiful than the definition indicates!

You may have noticed that some people’s presentation slides are much easier to understand than others, but you may not have noticed that the ease arises from making all bullets in each grouping the same part of speech (all verb phrases, all noun phrases, or all adjectives, for instance). They’re grammatically parallel.

We can use the same principle in prose so that the reader can glide through our writing. Parallelism enhances meaning-making through grammatical rhythms.

Here is an example taken from a narrative; the sentence isn’t faulty, but its impact can be improved with parallelism:

Projects are central to how modern organizations structure work, yet more often than not they are late or over-budget, or they fail.

And here are two (there are more) ways to communicate the same thoughts using parallel constructions:

Though central to how modern organizations structure work, projects are often late, over-budget, or ineffective.

Projects, while central to how modern organizations structure their work, often end with long delays, cost more than planned, and fall short of objectives.

Here is another narrative excerpt that uses parallelism powerfully:

When students contact me for advice on a personnel or business issue, when they week my recommendation letters for jobs and graduate school, or when they simply email me to check-in, I understand I have helped them embrace the college goal of life-long learning.

Don’t Shout—Whisper

My high school drama teacher explained the power of undercutting: If you really want to emphasize a line, don’t shout it—whisper it. Similarly, when you want to increase a particular point’s power, place it in a shorter sentence. You can also place that powerful, short sentence in a shorter paragraph. While I wouldn’t recommend this for professional narratives, to ratchet up impact, you can even make that very short sentence its own paragraph.

It rivets the attention (you see).

All the writing techniques for eloquence and emphasis, however, provide no substitute for clarity in your thinking. You must know what is crucial to emphasize in your situation, to make these approaches work for you. Familiarity with the criteria and standards set forth by your academic unit, and iteratively working with sentences to communicate your accomplishments, will help you see clearly what you wish to underscore with grace.