PRACTISE PARALLELISM


If you would like to understand the concept of parallelism better before you work with these materials, go to the online materials entitled Learn How to Use Parallel Structures in your Writing.

 

Task One
The text below has been divided into sections. Read each section, identify where parallelism occurs and highlight those particular words or phrases. Then check your answers to see if you are correct and to receive useful explanations about the occurrences of parallel structures in this text.


5 December 2012
GAMIFICATION: IS IT GAME OVER?
By Nic Fleming

Part One
  • Select the text below to highlight it.
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Your Answer Answer
  1. Taking the rules of video games and applying them to everyday life was billed as the next big thing, something that would transform everything from dull office work to how we exercise. But can it really work?
  1. (1) Taking the rules of video games and applying them to everyday life was billed as the next big thing, something that would transform (2) everything from dull office work to how we exercise. But can it really work?
Explanations
  1. Notice how the clauses before and after ‘and’ begin with a gerund.
  2. The grammatical structure that requires parallelism here is ‘everything from … to …’
    It could be argued that ‘dull office work’ and ‘how we exercise’ are not exactly parallel, but they are both noun phrases. It would be OK to write ‘everything from dull office work to ways in which we exercise’, but it sounds a little awkward. Note in the examples below how ‘range from … to …’ and ‘all kinds of … to …’ require similar parallel structures.
  • Reactions to Margaret Thatcher’s death ranged from the saddened to the overjoyed.
  • Reactions to Margaret Thatcher’s death ranged from those who were saddened to those who were overjoyed.
  • She’s acted in all kinds of films from comedies to thrillers.  
Part Two
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  1. Brushed your teeth this morning? Congratulations, you get 20 points. Hit your quarterly performance target early? Good work, you get half a day's extra holiday. You voted in the recent elections so you get your third citizenship badge. But you've slipped another two places down your gym's fitness leaderboard, so that means an extra few miles on the treadmill next week. If this all sounds like an Orwellian nightmare, think again. This is your “gamified” future.
  1. Brushed your teeth this morning? Congratulations, you get 20 points. Hit your quarterly performance target early? Good work, you get half a day's extra holiday. You voted in the recent elections so you get your third citizenship badge. But you've slipped another two places down your gym's fitness leaderboard, so that means an extra few miles on the treadmill next week. If this all sounds like an Orwellian nightmare, think again. This is your “gamified” future.
Explanations
Notice the repetition of the past participle, the language of praise and ‘you get’.
Part Three
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Your Answer Answer
  1. Gamification is a buzz word used to describe systems that take elements of everyday games like chess and Donkey Kong and applies them to everyday life. Perhaps the best-known example of gamification is Foursquare, the location-based social network in which people "check in" to places via their phones. Users are awarded badges for going out and experiencing new things. And the more they frequent a place, the higher their status becomes. For example, they may become the "mayor" of their coffee shop, potentially opening the door to discounts and other prizes.
  1. Gamification is a buzz word used to describe systems that take elements of everyday games like chess and Donkey Kong and applies them to everyday life. Perhaps the best-known example of gamification is Foursquare, the location-based social network in which people "check in" to places via their phones. Users are awarded badges for going out and experiencing new things. And the more they frequent a place, the higher their status becomes. For example, they may become the "mayor" of their coffee shop, potentially opening the door to discounts and other prizes.
Explanations
Notice how both the verbs ‘go’ and ‘experience’ need to be parallel. The use of the preposition ‘for’ governs the form of the verbs.
The use of the comparative structure in yellow means that the sentence has to be balanced grammatically.
Look at the examples below to understand how this works.
  • The more things change, the more they stay the same.
  • The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.
  • The more I see her, the less I understand her.
  • The higher I climb, the more tired I become.
Part Four
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  1. But if you think it is just tech-savvy teens hoping for a cheap latte that are in on the game, think again. Everyone from businesses to governments are busy re-designing the way they work to include elements such as completing missions, competition, social interaction, status and rewarding achievement. Activities and products that have already been gamified include buying a burger, graphics editing software, learning languages, fitness gadgets and all manner of jobs including sales, IT, customer relations and even waiting tables. Gamification gurus maintain this is only the beginning. Only last year, the US-based analysts Gartner predicted that 70% of the world's top 2000 companies will be using gamification in some form by 2014.
  1. But if you think it is just tech-savvy teens hoping for a cheap latte that are in on the game, think again. Everyone from businesses to governments are busy re-designing the way they work to include elements such as completing missions, competition, social interaction, status and rewarding achievement. Activities and products that have already been gamified include buying a burger, graphics editing software, learning languages, fitness gadgets and all manner of jobs including sales, IT, customer relations and even waiting tables. Gamification gurus maintain this is only the beginning. Only last year, the US-based analysts Gartner predicted that 70% of the world's top 2000 companies will be using gamification in some form by 2014.
Explanations

‘If you think …, think again’ is a common parallel expression.
‘Everyone from … to …’ is similar to the expression you have seen before with ‘Everything from … to …’.
Notice how the lists in yellow are parallel because they are made up of nouns, compound nouns or noun phrases. Gerund phrases such as ‘completing missions’ or ‘buying a burger’ function like nouns.

Part Five
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Your Answer Answer
  1. But now there seems to be a growing backlash. Just 12 months after Gartner predicted the huge growth in the genre, it released another report saying that “gamification is currently being driven by novelty and hype”. By 2014, it predicts that 80% of gamification applications will fail to deliver “because of poor design”. In addition, a growing number of critics are asking some probing questions: Is gamification just a rehash of old ideas, how does it work, might it be exploitative, could it actually undermine motivation and won't it trigger addiction?
  1. But now there seems to be a growing backlash. Just 12 months after Gartner predicted the huge growth in the genre, it released another report saying that “gamification is currently being driven by novelty and hype”. By 2014, it predicts that 80% of gamification applications will fail to deliver “because of poor design”. In addition, a growing number of critics are asking some probing questions: Is gamification just a rehash of old ideas, how does it work, might it be exploitative, could it actually undermine motivation and won't it trigger addiction?
Explanations

 
Part Six
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Your Answer Answer
  1. Power up

    The ideas that underpin gamification stretch as far back as 1937, when American psychologist BF Skinner proposed a system he called operant conditioning. The idea – perhaps best known for the images of rats hitting a lever to release food pellets - revealed how the use of rewards and punishments could also change human behaviour. A few years later Abraham Maslow put forward his needs theory of human motivation which highlighted sense of belonging, self esteem and the realisation of personal potential as key. Then in the 1970s, so-called self determination theory identified competence, relatedness and autonomy as fundamental human needs.
  1. Power up

    The ideas that underpin gamification stretch as far back as 1937, when American psychologist BF Skinner proposed a system he called operant conditioning. The idea – perhaps best known for the images of rats hitting a lever to release food pellets - revealed how the use of rewards and punishments could also change human behaviour. A few years later Abraham Maslow put forward his needs theory of human motivation which highlighted sense of belonging, self esteem and the realisation of personal potential as key. Then in the 1970s, so-called self determination theory identified competence, relatedness and autonomy as fundamental human needs.
Explanations
The repeated references to past time make the paragraph easy to follow.
Notice accordingly how the verbs are in the past form.
Part Seven
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Your Answer Answer
  1. But on their own, these ideas were not enough. After all, boy scouts have been getting badges to reward achievement for close to a century. And competition, leaderboards and financial rewards have long been deployed to motivate sales teams and those who accumulate frequent flyer points are offered enhanced status, special offers and other privileges.
  1. But on their own, these ideas were not enough. After all, boy scouts have been getting badges to reward achievement for close to a century. And competition, leaderboards and financial rewards have long been deployed to motivate sales teams and those who accumulate frequent flyer points are offered enhanced status, special offers and other privileges.
Explanations
The language structures highlighted in yellow are all present passive forms.
Part Eight
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  1. The other trend that allowed gamification to grab the limelight was so-called big data. The emergence of mobile computing, cheap storage and  inexpensive sensors means that information about every aspect of our life can be collected and recorded unlike any other time in history. Cheap, portable consumers gadgets and smart phone apps can now measure aspects things like their activity levels, diet, sleep patterns, mood and health. "Everything we do is being mediated by technology, whether it is entertainment, work or sports or play, and this is generating huge amounts of user activity data," says Rajat Paharia, the founding father of gamification. "Now we can take that data and apply it to the motivation problem." By which Paharia means, combining the data with game mechanics to allow people to pursue targets. So, for example, if someone wants to run 10km (7miles) in one hour but can only currently run 8km in that time, gamification might use a series of rewards and “levels” to help them to achieve their goal. Along the way, their performance might be monitored and recorded by their phone allowing them to track their progress. An element of peer pressure might be included by encouraging the runner to upload their progressively quicker times onto a social network or a website where other people share similar goals.
  1. The other trend that allowed gamification to grab the limelight was so-called big data. The emergence of mobile computing, cheap storage and  inexpensive sensors means that information about every aspect of our life can be collected and recorded unlike any other time in history. Cheap, portable consumers gadgets and smart phone apps can now measure aspects things like their activity levels, diet, sleep patterns, mood and health. "Everything we do is being mediated by technology, whether it is entertainment, work or sports or play, and this is generating huge amounts of user activity data," says Rajat Paharia, the founding father of gamification. "Now we can take that data and apply it to the motivation problem." By which Paharia means, combining the data with game mechanics to allow people to pursue targets. So, for example, if someone wants to run 10km (7miles) in one hour but can only currently run 8km in that time, gamification might use a series of rewards and “levels” to help them to achieve their goal. Along the way, their performance might be monitored and recorded by their phone allowing them to track their progress. An element of peer pressure might be included by encouraging the runner to upload their progressively quicker times onto a social network or a website where other people share similar goals.
Explanations
The lists highlighted in green are parallel in structure because they contain nouns or noun phrases.
The verbs highlighted in blue are all in the passive voice.
Notice the repetition of the might in three verb phrases.
Part Nine
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Your Answer Answer
  1. This kind of example is well known to Paharia. He started his California-based company Bunchball in 2005, trying to persuade the likes of MySpace and Facebook of the potential of online gaming. In the process he came across the motivational power of game mechanics and created a web-based service for businesses. "We realised you could take the game mechanics that game designers had been using for years such as competition, real-time feedback and goal-setting, and apply them elsewhere," says Paharia. "Outside of gaming they still work to drive behaviour because they are based on satisfying fundamental human needs and desires."
  1. This kind of example is well known to Paharia. He started his California-based company Bunchball in 2005, trying to persuade the likes of MySpace and Facebook of the potential of online gaming. In the process he came across the motivational power of game mechanics and created a web-based service for businesses. "We realised you could take the game mechanics that game designers had been using for years such as competition, real-time feedback and goal-setting, and apply them elsewhere," says Paharia. "Outside of gaming they still work to drive behaviour because they are based on satisfying fundamental human needs and desires."
Explanations
‘The likes of MySpace and Facebook’ means ‘companies such as these’.
Part Ten
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Your Answer Answer
  1. Bunchball landed its first contract based on these ideas when asked in 2007 by NBC to create a community site for fans of the TV comedy series The Office. At this point the concept didn't have an established name. Paharia adopted the word "gamification" in 2009 after hearing someone use it in a presentation. Business was slow at first but took off in 2010. Now the firm employs 65 people and has an impressive client list including the likes of Intel, Marriott, Playboy and Ford. It has been followed by a raft of other firms offering similar services.
  1. Bunchball landed its first contract based on these ideas when asked in 2007 by NBC to create a community site for fans of the TV comedy series The Office. At this point the concept didn't have an established name. Paharia adopted the word "gamification" in 2009 after hearing someone use it in a presentation. Business was slow at first but took off in 2010. Now the firm employs 65 people and has an impressive client list including the likes of Intel, Marriott, Playboy and Ford. It has been followed by a raft of other firms offering similar services.
Explanations
As in the previous paragraph, notice the consistency of the past tense to refer to the past times indicated.
‘The likes of’ to give examples is used again here.
Part Eleven
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  1. "Game-based techniques can be applied to many more aspects of life than people might think," says Kevin Werbach, an associate professor of legal studies and business ethics at the University of Pennsylvania who teaches a course on gamification. "The structures and procedures that game designers have developed can be applied just as well to the work place and social impact situations such as global warming or environmental sustainability." Opower, for example, is software designed to help people cut their energy use by completing challenges, earning points and badges, working in groups and sharing tips.
  1. "Game-based techniques can be applied to many more aspects of life than people might think," says Kevin Werbach, an associate professor of legal studies and business ethics at the University of Pennsylvania who teaches a course on gamification. "The structures and procedures that game designers have developed can be applied just as well to the work place and social impact situations such as global warming or environmental sustainability." Opower, for example, is software designed to help people cut their energy use by completing challenges, earning points and badges, working in groups and sharing tips.
Explanations
Note the parallel structure of the final three verbs because they all follow the preposition ‘by’. 
Task Two
The article below contains several examples of faulty parallelism. This does not always mean that the sentences are grammatically wrong, but it does mean that the writing style may be awkward and can therefore be improved. The article – Could playing a game find a cure for cancer? – has been divided into three parts. Paste each part into the box underneath where you will be able to edit it. First, identify where the faulty parallelism is and then revise the sentences. If you need any help, click on the blue box labelled ‘Give me a hint’ to see those parts of the text that need rewriting.  When you have finished your revisions check your answer.

COULD PLAYING A GAME FIND A CURE FOR CANCER?


Part One
A number of scientists who work for a cancer charity in the UK have decided to form a team with technology experts from the likes of Facebook, Amazon and the company, Google, to brainstorm ideas, to design and develop a mobile game which they claim will speed up the process of finding and to develop new drugs for cancer. All people will need is a smartphone and some spare time, perhaps as little as five minutes, to investigate science data while playing a game. The power of these ‘future citizen scientists’ will be harnessed to speed up research into cancer. The more the game is played, new technologies will be found faster to diagnose and treat the disease effectively.
Your Answer:
Answer:
A number of scientists who work for a cancer charity in the UK have decided to form a team with technology experts from the likes of Facebook, Amazon and Google to brainstorm ideas, design and develop a mobile game which they claim will speed up the process of finding and developing new drugs for cancer. All people will need is a smartphone and some spare time, perhaps as little as five minutes, to investigate science data while playing a game. The power of these ‘future citizen scientists’ will be harnessed to speed up research into cancer. The more the game is played, the faster new technologies will be found to diagnose and treat the disease effectively.
Part Two
‘Citizen science’ is a fairly new term, but an old practice. Prior to the 20th Century, science was often the pursuit of gentleman scientists, amateur researchers or researchers who were able to fund themselves such as Sir Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, and Darwin. However, science was dominated by researchers employed by universities and government research laboratories by the mid-20th Century. By the 1970s, this transformation was being called into question. Philosopher Paul Feyerabend called for a "democratization of science." Biochemist Erwin Chargaff advocate a return to science by nature-loving amateurs in the tradition of Descartes, Newton, and Charles Darwin—science dominated by "amateurship instead of money-biased technical bureaucrats”. Over the past two decades with advances in technology, citizen science has become more widely known and its popularity has increased dramatically. People with smartphones and other consumer electronic devices can volunteer to participate in research which ranges from recording the number of different animals in safari parks in Africa, to search for new planets in the universe, and they can classify tropical cyclone data to help scientists better understand weather patterns.*

*Part of this section has been taken from Wikipedia.
Your Answer:
Answer:
‘Citizen science’ is a fairly new term, but an old practice. Prior to the 20th Century, science was often the pursuit of gentleman scientists, amateur or self-funded researchers such as Sir Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, and Charles Darwin. By the mid-20th Century, however, science was dominated by researchers employed by universities and government research laboratories. By the 1970s, this transformation was being called into question. Philosopher Paul Feyerabend called for a "democratization of science." Biochemist Erwin Chargaff advocated a return to science by nature-loving amateurs in the tradition of Descartes, Newton, and Darwin—science dominated by "amateurship instead of money-biased technical bureaucrats”. Over the past two decades with advances in technology, citizen science has become more widely known and much more popular. People with smartphones and other consumer electronic devices can volunteer to participate in research which ranges from recording the number of different animals in safari parks in Africa, to searching for new planets in the universe, to classifying tropical cyclone data to help scientists better understand weather patterns.
Part Three
Forty computer programmers, graphic designers, game specialists and scientists will meet in London next weekend to design a game that will use the UK cancer charity’s raw data. Scientists are hopeful that once this enormous amount of data has been processed it will help them understand better the genetic reasons for the development of cancer, why some drugs work and the reasons why other drugs do not work. After the meeting in London, an agency will create the game which will be launched sometime after June 2013.
Your Answer:
Answer:
40 computer programmers, graphic designers, game specialists and scientists will meet in London next weekend to design a game that will use the UK cancer charity’s raw data. Scientists are hopeful that once this enormous amount of data has been processed it will help them understand better the genetic reasons for the development of cancer, why some drugs work and why others do not. After the meeting in London, an agency will create the game which will be launched sometime after June 2013.
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