5 exercises — consistent grammatical form in lists, headers, API docs, and function descriptions for clarity and professionalism.
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
Which bullet-point list is correctly parallel?
Option B is correctly parallel — all three items are third-person singular present tense verbs describing pipeline steps: "runs / builds / pushes." This form is standard in CI/CD documentation when describing automated steps. Options A, C, and D mix different grammatical forms (gerunds, infinitives, noun phrases), breaking parallelism.
2 / 5
A README has these section headers: "Installation", "Configuring the app", "How to deploy", "Monitoring". How should they be rewritten for parallelism?
Options B, C, and D are all internally parallel. However, option C (gerund/noun forms ending in -tion/-ing) is the most common convention in technical documentation (think: Linux man pages, AWS docs, RFC sections). Option B (imperative verbs) is used in task-based tutorials. Option D (how-to phrases) works in user guides. The key principle: choose one and apply it consistently. Option C is the most document-like and formal.
3 / 5
A job description lists responsibilities. Which version is correctly parallel?
Option B uses bare infinitives after "will": design / write / review / mentor — all parallel. This is the correct form after modal verbs. Never mix infinitives with gerunds or prepositional phrases in the same list. Job descriptions, sprint goals, and project charters should all follow this pattern.
4 / 5
An architecture document describes three database design principles. Which list is parallel?
Option B uses imperative verbs for all three items: "Normalise / Index / Partition." This is the standard form for technical guidelines, best practices lists, and configuration instructions. The imperative is preferred over gerunds or full sentences in numbered recommendation lists because it is direct and action-focused.
5 / 5
A function docstring lists three parameters. Which description is parallel?
Option B uses "the + noun phrase" structure for all three: "the maximum wait time in seconds / the maximum number of retry attempts / whether to enable debug logging." Note: "whether to..." is a parallel alternative for boolean parameters describing a choice. Options A, C, D mix different forms (gerunds, noun phrases, bare adjectives, verb phrases). Consistent docstring style directly affects IDE hover text quality and auto-generated documentation.