Page 304 - English - Teaching Academic Esl Writing

290 CHAPTER 11
long to different types and/or parts of speech. In most cases, they can be easy to correct and explain.
(1) Faulty Parallelisms: Infinitive—Gerund and Other Verb Phrase Elements
*Thearticledescribeshowtodayyoungpeopledonotlikereadingbuttoplay com- puter games and other visual media.
This sentence actually contains two errors in two different parallel structures.The firststructuredonotlikereadingbut*[toplay]hingeson the fact that gerunds mostly have the function of abstract nouns (see chap. 5), whereas infinitives have many adverbial characteristics (see chap. 9). To correct this error, the infinitive toplay needs to be turned into a ger- und (playing) or the gerund reading into an infinitive to read to make it parallel to to play.
The second error is somewhat more complex because it builds parallel construction between the two noun phrases play games and [...] other visual media. In this case, the structure would mean that young people play ... other visual media. However, visual media such as TV or the Internet cannot be
played, but rather they are used. To correct this construction, the parallelism needs to be build on two verbs—play and use (or enjoy, rely on, depend on) in- stead of the noun phrases games and visual media.
(2) Un-Parallel Nouns/Noun Phrases
*Pascal was aphilosopher, law scholar, educator, scientist, and he studied mathematics.
In this sentence, the series of nouns is not parallel to the sentence he stud- ied mathematics, which can simply be turned into another noun to match other elements: mathematician.
(3) Unparallel Simple Sentences in a Compound Sentence
Other common types of errors entail partial parallelisms of two simple sentences. In the following example, the second construction exists the belief is a sentence without the subject that attempts to be parallel to the complete simple sentence this definition is obscure.
*Forthepublic,thisdefinition isobscure,andexiststhebeliefthatengineersaretech- nical people who don't have much knowledge in anything.
Although the two simple sentences this definition is obscure and exists the be- lief. .. are intended to be parallel, they are not because the second sentence does not have a subject. Two corrections are possible: there exists [a] belief that or many believe that....
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