use parallel structure correctly in my own sentences, identify anaphora and antithesis in a speech, and explain what the grammar does that the content alone would not.
Workbook: page 8 of your Unit 3 Student Workbook. Draft on paper first; anything scored is submitted online in this lesson.
Instruction
Parallel structure means that items doing the same grammatical job in a sentence take the same grammatical form. It is a rule of correctness and, in oratory, a source of power — which is why the CCSS treats it as a language standard and why every memorable speech in English is full of it.
Start with correctness.
- Faulty: Athens values open debate, equal justice, and that citizens participate.
- Parallel: Athens values open debate, equal justice, and active citizenship.
Two nouns and a clause cannot share one list. The ear hears the break before the grammar is diagnosed. The same rule governs verb forms (reading, writing, and speaking — not reading, writing, and to speak) and paired constructions: not only… but also…, either… or…, both… and… must join equivalent forms on each side.
Now the power. Parallelism makes a sentence predictable in form, which does two things at once: it lowers the effort of following the content, and it makes any break in the pattern land like a change of key.
Anaphora is parallelism plus repetition at the head of successive clauses. Pericles: “If we look to the laws… if to social standing…” Sojourner Truth, four times over: “And ain’t I a woman?” Each repetition costs the audience nothing to process, so attention moves to the new material inside the frame — and the returning phrase accumulates weight it did not have the first time.
Antithesis sets opposed ideas in parallel form so the grammar performs the contrast: “we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves.” The balance is the argument. Rewrite it unbalanced — we are a pattern to others and we do not imitate other states — and the claim survives while the force does not.
Tricolon is the three-part parallel series. Three is the smallest number that establishes a pattern and completes it in the same breath, which is why it is everywhere.
Here is the analytical move this lesson is really training, and it connects to RI.9-10.5. When you write about a speech, do not stop at naming the device. Anaphora is used to emphasize her point is a sentence that could be written about any speech by someone who had not read this one. Instead: what does the repeated frame make the audience notice, and what does the speaker slip inside it? In Truth’s address the frame is a question the audience must answer, and inside it each time is a different piece of evidence from her own life — labor, childbirth, the lash. The anaphora converts a series of facts into a demand for a verdict, four times, with no room to decline.
Your drill. Five unbalanced sentences follow in the practice. Repair each, then choose one and write a second version using anaphora. Read both aloud. If you cannot hear the difference, you have not yet made one.
Reading: Mentor sentences on parallel structure, anaphora and antithesis, with a worked key
Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 2, tr. Richard Crawley (1874), Project Gutenberg 7142; Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (Bliss copy, 1863), Wikisource (https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Gettysburg_Address_%28Bliss_copy%29&action=render); Sojourner Truth, Ain’t I a Woman? (1851; Frances D. Gage version, 1863), Wikisource (https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Ain%27t_I_a_Woman%3F&action=render); Frederick Douglass, What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? (1852), Wikisource (https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=What_to_the_Slave_Is_the_Fourth_of_July%3F&action=render); Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments (1848), Wikisource (https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Declaration_of_Sentiments&action=render); all retrieved 26 Sept. 2026 · SLS original; quoted mentor sentences are public domain (Thucydides, tr. Crawley, 1874; Lincoln, 1863; Truth, 1851; Douglass, 1852; Stanton, 1848)
Study the mentors, do the exercise, then check yourself against the key.
Sources. Mentor sentences are copied from the public-domain texts named under each one, retrieved 2026-09-26: Thucydides in the Crawley translation (Project Gutenberg #7142), Lincoln’s Bliss copy, the Truth transcription by Gage, Douglass’s 1852 oration and Stanton’s 1848 Declaration of Sentiments (all via Wikisource). The Truth text is the 1863 Gage version; other transcriptions of the same speech differ. Explanations, keys and extra practice are SLS original.
1. The correctness rule
Items that do the same grammatical job in a sentence take the same form. A list can be nouns, or verbs in the same tense, or clauses, but not a mixture. The same rule covers paired constructions (not only … but also, either … or, both … and): each side must match the other.
2. Mentor sentences: parallel structure that works
Antithesis sets opposed ideas in matching grammar, so that the grammar performs the contrast.
we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 2, Pericles’s Funeral Oration, tr. Richard Crawley (1874)
wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it.
Pericles’s Funeral Oration, tr. Crawley (1874)
Reading them. “A pattern to others” balances “imitators ourselves” on either side of than. In the second, “for use” balances “for show.” Try to unbalance the first (“we are a pattern and we do not imitate”) and notice that the claim survives but the force does not.
Anaphora is repetition at the head of successive clauses. It lets the audience stop processing the frame and attend to the new material inside it.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground.
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (1863), Bliss copy, via Wikisource
I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon,
Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” (1852), via Wikisource
And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much
Truth (1851, Gage 1863), on the repeated question, with its answers
He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise. He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice. He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men – both natives and foreigners. Having deprived her of this first right as a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides. He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead. He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments, Seneca Falls (1848), via Wikisource, a run of “He has” clauses
Antithesis and the tricolon. A tricolon is a three-part parallel series; three is the smallest number that makes a pattern.
that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (1863)
The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (1863)
Reading them. In “of the people, by the people, for the people,” only one word changes and it is the preposition; each repetition costs the listener almost nothing, so the new word does all the work. In “the world will little note … but it can never forget,” antithesis sets what the speakers say against what the dead did.
3. Worked key to the exercise (SLS original)
- (a) The speech praises Athens for its laws, its openness and its reward of merit. Three noun phrases, each beginning with a possessive. The faulty version ended with a clause (“that it rewards merit”), which broke the list.
- (b) Truth’s evidence is that she plowed, bore thirteen children and endured the lash. Three past-tense verbs. The faulty version mixed a gerund (“plowing”), a clause and another gerund.
- (c) A good argument requires precise claims, relevant evidence and anticipated objections. Three noun phrases, each an adjective and a noun. The faulty version ended with an infinitive (“to anticipate”).
Rewrite one with anaphora and say what the repetition adds. Model, from (a): The speech praises Athens for its laws. It praises Athens for its openness. It praises Athens for its reward of merit. The repeated head makes the list sound like a case being built, and it slows the audience so that each item lands separately. The cost is length; the gain is emphasis.
Two more practice sentences, so that five can be repaired. (d) Douglass calls the celebration a sham, the liberty an unholy license, and the rejoicing that it is empty. Key: Douglass calls the celebration a sham, the liberty an unholy license and the rejoicing hollow. (e) Pericles says that Athens is both open to strangers and that its citizens live as they please. Key: Pericles says that Athens is both open to strangers and free in its private life. The correlative “both … and” needs the same form after each part.
Identify the device. Model: in Lincoln’s “we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground,” the device is anaphora (the repeated “we can not”) producing a tricolon (three verbs). What the structure does that the content alone would not: the three verbs are close in meaning, so the rising series says that the words cannot add to the ground, and the sentence turns on the next one: the men “have consecrated it.”
The checks. The correct quiz sentence is the one with three matching noun phrases (“its open debate, its equal justice, and its active citizenship”). “Truth uses anaphora to emphasize her point” is not adequate analysis, because it could be said of any speech: say how this frame (“And ain’t I a woman?”) holds a question that demands a verdict while each new piece of her own life is placed inside it. Devices: repeating the head is anaphora, opposed ideas in matching form are antithesis, and a three-part series is a tricolon.
Formative check
Work through these before moving on. They are not graded — they tell you, and your teacher, whether the standard below has landed yet.
Which sentence uses parallel structure correctly?
Writing “Truth uses anaphora to emphasize her point” is adequate analysis of the repeated question in her speech.
Repeating the same words at the head of successive clauses is ; placing opposed ideas in matching grammatical form is ; a three-part parallel series is a .
Repair these for parallel structure, then rewrite one of them using anaphora and say what the repetition adds: (a) The speech praises Athens for its laws, its openness, and that it rewards merit. (b) Truth’s evidence is plowing, she bore thirteen children, and enduring the lash. (c) A good argument requires precise claims, evidence that is relevant, and to anticipate objections.
How confident are you that you can hear a broken parallel in my own writing and repair it without being told which item is wrong?