- [Instructor] Let's take a
look at question four here. Electronic health records
provide many advantages over paper ones. They don't require physical storage space. They don't need to be
photocopied and collated, and they are less likely
to be physically misplaced. And our choices are A, no change. They are B, because they are. C being, and D Delete
the underlined portion. All right, so this sentence
introduces three advantages. The first one is they don't
require physical storage space. The second one is they don't need to be photocopied and collated, and the third one is they are less likely to be physically misplaced. This sounds pretty good as is, so I'm leaning towards the no
change option to begin with, but just to be sure, I'm
going to apply a grammar rule that I always use when
setting up lists of phrases, and that's parallel structure. Parallel structure is this idea that when two or more words,
phrases, or clauses are linked they should share the same structure. Verb form should match,
phrase structure should match, and modifiers like adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions phrases
should also match. So for example, this is not parallel. She ran her business briskly,
efficiently, and with speed. That's not parallel, but this is. She ran her business briskly,
efficiently, and speedily. I wanted to make them all match, so I changed with speed to speedily. I turned it into an adverb to
match briskly and efficiently. And that's parallel structure
in a nutshell, make a match. On test day, you'll see
one to two questions that require you to identify and avoid parallel structures in the underlined portions of sentences. Let's go over some top tips to handle parallel structure questions. So top tip, make them match. If you notice that a sentence is creating a set of two or more elements, try to make the structure
of each underlined element match the structure of the others. So if the structure goes,
noun, noun, adjective, and the adjective is underlined, change the adjective to a
noun to match the others. The next top tip, avoid
unnecessary repetition. One way parallel structure errors crop up is when sentence elements
come up twice unnecessarily. So if we look at "The
hobbits packed their bags with mushrooms, biscuits,
and with cheese," we can see how with
introduces the whole list, and it applies to all three items, mushrooms, biscuits, and cheese. And that means that the
with right before cheese is redundant and it can be removed. Leaving us with, The
hobbits pack their bags with mushrooms, biscuits, and cheese. Our final top tip is to
focus on what you can change. Parallel structure
questions will underline only part of a sentence. Your job is to match the
parts of the sentence you can change, the underlined part, to the parts of the
sentence you cannot change. That sounds simple enough, but it's easy to get lost in the weeds with questions like these. Preassembled meal kits
are cheaply, healthily, and convenient, especially
when compared to take out. And this one's a little tougher, right? Because the adverbs cheaply and healthily are parallel with each other, but they're underlined
and convenient is not. So we have to take our
cues from convenient, which is an adjective. And that means we have to change the underlying adverbs into adjectives to maintain parallel
structure with convenient, giving us, Preassembled meal
kits are cheap, healthy, and convenient, especially
when compared to take out. Okay, so let's take these top tips and apply them to our question. If you'd like, pause the video
here and try it on your own. All right, let's do it together. Electronic medical records don't require physical storage space. They don't need to be
photocopied and collated, and they are less likely
to be physically misplaced. Okay, so in the part of this
list that isn't underlined, I'm noticing a pattern. They don't do this. They don't do this. They are that. If there were a third they don't option, believe me, I'd jump on it,
but I don't see one choices. So what matches that pattern? They are, choice A, kind of matches it, let's leave it in. Choice B, because they are. This has the they verb construct, but introduces a because,
which breaks the pattern. Cross it off, simple as that. Choice C, being. Let's plug it back into the sentence. They don't need to be
photocopied and collated, and being less likely to
be physically misplaced. This breaks the pattern and
breaks the parallel structure. Nope, let's cross it off. Choice D, delete the underlined portion. All right, let's see what this does. They don't need to be
photocopied and collated and less likely to be
physically misplaced. This doesn't match that
they verb structure. So bye-bye D. And that leaves us with A, the one choice that maintains
a parallel structure with the other items on the list. Let's review the strategy. When you're looking at
structured elements in a list, first identify the parallel structure. What's happening in the sentence, and is it being interrupted? Next focus on the parts you can change. How can you make the underlined portion match the part of the sentence
that isn't underlined, and finally avoid unnecessary repetition. Eliminate extra words that would spoil the parallel structure, or result in grammar errors. Good luck out there, you've got this.