Parallelism

Parallelism and how it works (simplistically speaking)

Parallelism is a stylistic device which helps an author structuring a text, and putting emphasis on specific parts of it. At the same time the reader benefits from information conveyed in parallelisms too. Instructions, dates, and any kind of list will most likely be read and remembered very easily when presented in a “parallel” way. One of the keys to successfully storing information in the long-term memory part of the brain is repetition.

If the author of a political essay wants to guide their readers through the text in a certain way, and if the author wants to convince their readers of a certain opinion, parallelism is an effective way to do so.

I just used parallelism to emphasize the strong relationship authors have with their readers through their work, and also to emphasize the power that lies within that relationship. By using the same subject and object in each part of the sentence, this mental bond grows even stronger.

When explaining this phenomenon in the previous sentence, I again used parallelism to point out how the use of this stylistic device really helps emphasizing certain information. You, the reader, will now probably think of “emphasis” when hearing the word “parallelism” or when noticing it in a text, and with that all the knowledge you just gained will come along with it.

You might be highly annoyed, or slightly grateful, or solidly entertained, but you can not stop yourself from noticing now that even this last sentence started with on of those parallelisms.