Karl, Susan, et al.,
I recognize option D as a good example of parallelism. However, parallelism isn't restricted to the single sentence context, where both parts of the parallel structure are included in that sentence. Consider the following:
Heather and her sister Joanne were both afraid of spiders. Heather's fear was offset by her deep sense of compassion for vulnerable creatures. Unlike Heather, who would always put spiders safely outside if she found them in the house, Joanne's fear kept her from going anywhere near the creatures.
While it's a less than polished paragraph--and I'm prepared to be criticized for bad writing, the parallelism extends across two sentences. Obviously I omitted a second "her sister" to avoid unnecessary redundancy. (I am prepared to defend that seemingly redundant phrase.)
My point is not that D was bad but that isolated sentences are of limited usefulness in making grammaticality or stylistic judgments. During the Generative Semantics debates of the early 70s, linguists played around with context-dependent sentences, one of the more tacky of which was
"Spiro conjectures Ex-Lax."
which could, at the time, only be interpreted as a response to a question like
"What does Pat Nixon frost her cakes with?"
I heard the sentence attributed to Jim McCawley, but I can't find documentation of that. Whoever came up with the sentence, the point is made in an extreme form. The sentence is simply uninterpretable without at least an inferred context. The test example is far from being so extreme a case, but the argument is pretty much the same.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Karl Hagen
Sent: 2009-06-01 20:38
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Parallel structure and homework; ATEG Digest - 29 May 2009 to 30 May 2009 (#2009-129)
Although as a general principal I tend to accept Herb's point that SAT writing
questions would be much improved if there were a larger context in which to
judge putative errors, I agree with Susan that this sentence needs revision
regardless of any larger context. I cannot see very many, if any, professional
editors allowing a sentence like this to stand without revision.
Also, I would submit that in terms of testing, there is a substantive
difference between a question that merely asks students if something is an
error (the SAT also has this type of question) and questions that ask which is
the best among a set of alternative phrasings, as this one does.
I'm willing to entertain the notion that the original is arguably Standard
English, at least in the descriptive sense that many writers produce such
sentences and readers can cope with them well enough to infer the intended
meaning, the proposed correct answer is clearly _better_ than the original, as
it directly expresses the patent sense of the sentence without the silly
comparison of a person to a person's fear. And for this question type,
students are being asked to pick the best version among the alternatives.
That said, there are related constructions for which I think Herb's point
might be argued more convincingly. In addition to considering this problem as
a parallelism violation, or as an illogical comparison, we could also call it
a dangling modifier. And among dangling modifiers, there is a gradient of
obviousness. Compare, for example,
(1) Looking fetching in a strapless black dress, Bob escorted his date to the
prom.
(2) To increase beer sales, an innovative "murketing" campaign was launched.
I would claim that examples like (1) are blatantly obvious problems and those
like (2) go practically unnoticed unless you are highly trained and reading in
a context, such as grading student papers or taking the SAT, where you are
primed to look for errors. I also think that the "Unlike..." example falls
closer to (1) in terms of obviousness.
When judging "errors," I often think of Joseph Williams' classic article "The
Phenomenology of Error", which bids us to think about errors in terms of how
readers perceive them in authentic contexts.
In the schoolbook grammars, (1) and (2) are both deprecated, but I'd submit
that a student who writes sentences like (1) is going to be perceived as far
less in control of his or her writing than one who writes sentences like (2).
So to the extent that a standardized test asks questions that presuppose
sentences like (2) are errors, I am strongly inclined to support Herb. In
point of fact, though, I don't find that the SAT does this very often on real
test questions (I've been studying them rather intently for the last few
years), although some of the practice problems that the College Board makes
available do have such flaws. Even without conscious thought on the part of
the test makers, there is at least some protection in the statistical
screening that operational test problems must endure. Problems, for example,
where better students are more likely to pick an incorrect answer than lower
students tend not to make it past the pre-testing phrase.
Karl
Susan van Druten wrote:
> Herb claims that if the context of the paragraph were centered around
> fear, then it would be appropriate for a writer to create an error in
> parallelism, i.e. to compare Heather with Joanne's fear. I am not sure
> why Herb things this. Does anyone know of any professional example of
> non-parallel items that is not a mistake?
>
> This is an excellent test question. It becomes even more obvious if you
> eliminate the interrupting clause. Unlike her sister Heather, Joanne's
> fear kept her from going anywhere near the creatures. The context is
> simply irrelevant.
>
>
> On May 31, 2009, at 10:35 PM, STAHLKE, HERBERT F wrote:
>
>> There are clearly errors which are appropriate to this technique. All
>> of this started because I objected to one decontextualized sentence on
>> an SAT. Susan and I do not agree on this sentence, but I maintain
>> that if standardized test developers are going to use this technique
>> they should at least make sure their test items are not context
>> dependent as this one is. It was a bad test item. The technique
>> itself can be useful, but the example in question demonstrates the
>> kind of problems that can arise. There are whole classes of problem
>> for which the technique works.
>>
>> Herb
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Scott
>> Sent: 2009-05-31 23:21
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Parallel structure and homework; ATEG Digest - 29 May
>> 2009 to 30 May 2009 (#2009-129)
>>
>> I concur fully with Susan van Druten's comment: I have structured similar
>> sentences for examinations.
>>
>> In response to Edmund Wright (I hope that I remembered the name
>> correctly),
>> American High School English do not normally have 6-7 classes;
>> however, the
>> classes are larger: My first year of teaching, I taught five different
>> classes of 40 students each with homework required in each subject
>> five days
>> a week (English, mathematics, General Science, World Geography,
>> Spanish. My
>> third year, I ended up with Latin I, Latin II, French I, French II, and
>> World History (the last was for Educable Mentally Handicapped
>> students). My
>> fifteenth year, I did have seven classes (2 sections of English II,
>> Latin I,
>> Latin II, Latin III, Latin IV, Spanish I). Classes only averaged 25
>> students (150 in lieu of the 200, with which I had started); however,
>> homework was only four nights a week. Several of the Latin classes
>> had two
>> levels in the same room.
>>
>>
>> N. Scott Catledge, PhD/STD
>> Professor Emeritus
>> history & languages
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of ATEG automatic digest
>> system
>> Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2009 12:00 AM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: ATEG Digest - 29 May 2009 to 30 May 2009 (#2009-129)
>>
>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]
>> OHIO.EDU] On Behalf Of Susan van Druten
>> Sent: 2009-05-30 10:44
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Class size and SAT parallel structure questions
>>
>> I agree that some test maker sometimes ask questions based on obscure
>> rules=
>> , but this one seems fair to me. Comparing "Heather" to "Joanne's
>> fear" ca=
>> uses the reader one second of adjustment. Try reading the sentence
>> without=
>> the interrupting clause. Unlike her sister Heather, Joanne's fear
>> kept he=
>> r from going anywhere near the creatures. Parallel structures (such as
>> "unl=
>> ike x") set up expectations in readers. When the writer doesn't
>> deliver, i=
>> t is as unsatisfying as the musician who withholds the final note.
>>
>> ***********************************************************
>>
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