For This Week's Journal Entry, Please Revise The Following ✓ Solved

For this week's journal entry, please revise the following s

For this week's journal entry, please revise the following sentences so that they use parallel construction.

1. Roma mystics are famous for their traditions of fortune-telling by reading Tarot cards, interpreting dreams, and they also look into crystal balls.
2. According to some traditions, every dream is supposed to contain its own symbol of the past or can predict the future.
3. When you have your tea leaves read, a true Romani will put a lot of effort into the ritual itself, including making the tea, selecting the appropriate china, and plays soothing music.
4. Palm readers examine lines on the palm, fingers and their lengths, and the prominence of the mounts.
5. Some critics of fortune-telling suggest that trained psychologists could also notice personal traits such as nervousness, that someone was lonely, or cheerful, which would also let them make reasonable predictions about a client's future.

Next, revise the following sentences so that they show variety in sentence length and structure. You may need to combine sentences or expand the sentences with details to add interest and variety.

1. Washington is the only state named after a president. Many cities and counties are named after presidents.
2. California is bordered by the Pacific Ocean. There are many islands, waterways, and rivers not to mention the evergreen forests near the coast.
3. The car battery would not start. The battery was dead. I called a tow truck.
4. She was not like her sister in fact they were total opposites.
5. Ricky Martin will remain my favorite singer although he has fallen out of fashion and I think he is terrific. He has done some free concerts for good causes too.

Paper For Above Instructions

This paper provides revised versions of the ten sentences given in the assignment. For each item requiring parallel construction, I supply a corrected sentence and a brief explanation of the change. For the sentences requiring variety, I offer revised versions that combine, expand, or restructure the originals to achieve rhythm and interest. The revisions follow conventional rules for parallelism and sentence variety (Purdue OWL, n.d.; Strunk & White, 2000).

Parallel construction revisions

1. Original: Roma mystics are famous for their traditions of fortune-telling by reading Tarot cards, interpreting dreams, and they also look into crystal balls.

   Revised: Roma mystics are famous for fortune-telling traditions such as reading Tarot cards, interpreting dreams, and looking into crystal balls.

   Explanation: The list now contains three gerunds (reading, interpreting, looking) to maintain parallel verb forms (Strunk & White, 2000; Purdue OWL, n.d.).

2. Original: According to some traditions, every dream is supposed to contain its own symbol of the past or can predict the future.

   Revised: According to some traditions, every dream is supposed either to contain a symbol of the past or to predict the future.

   Explanation: Using the paired infinitive structure "to contain... or to predict" balances the two possibilities and avoids mixing verb forms (Cambridge Dictionary, n.d.).

3. Original: When you have your tea leaves read, a true Romani will put a lot of effort into the ritual itself, including making the tea, selecting the appropriate china, and plays soothing music.

   Revised: When you have your tea leaves read, a true Romani will put a lot of effort into the ritual itself, including making the tea, selecting the appropriate china, and playing soothing music.

   Explanation: The phrase following "including" lists participles (making, selecting, playing), so "plays" is corrected to "playing" for parallelism (Merriam-Webster, n.d.; Purdue OWL, n.d.).

4. Original: Palm readers examine lines on the palm, fingers and their lengths, and the prominence of the mounts.

   Revised: Palm readers examine the lines and mounts of the hand, including line patterns, finger lengths, and mount prominence.

   Explanation: Rewriting clarifies the items and groups related elements into parallel noun phrases: "line patterns, finger lengths, and mount prominence" (APA, 2020).

5. Original: Some critics of fortune-telling suggest that trained psychologists could also notice personal traits such as nervousness, that someone was lonely, or cheerful, which would also let them make reasonable predictions about a client's future.

   Revised: Some critics of fortune-telling suggest that trained psychologists could notice personal traits such as nervousness, loneliness, or cheerfulness, enabling them to make reasonable predictions about a client's future.

   Explanation: The list now contains three parallel noun forms (nervousness, loneliness, cheerfulness) and replaces the clause "that someone was lonely" with the noun "loneliness" to maintain uniform structure (Hacker & Sommers, 2020).

Sentence variety revisions

1. Original: Washington is the only state named after a president. Many cities and counties are named after presidents.

   Revised: Washington is the only U.S. state named for a president; however, many cities and counties across the country also bear presidential names.

   Explanation: Combining the sentences with a semicolon and transitional phrase yields a more varied sentence rhythm and clearer relationship between ideas (Chicago Manual of Style, 2017).

2. Original: California is bordered by the Pacific Ocean. There are many islands, waterways, and rivers not to mention the evergreen forests near the coast.

   Revised: Bordered by the Pacific Ocean, California features numerous islands, waterways, and rivers, as well as evergreen forests along its coast.

   Explanation: An introductory participial phrase combined with a compressed list produces a single flowing sentence with internal variety (UNC Writing Center, n.d.).

3. Original: The car battery would not start. The battery was dead. I called a tow truck.

   Revised: The car refused to start because the battery was dead, so I called a tow truck.

   Explanation: Combining the three short sentences into one complex sentence improves rhythm and clarifies cause and effect (Purdue OWL, n.d.).

4. Original: She was not like her sister in fact they were total opposites.

   Revised: She was nothing like her sister; in fact, they were total opposites in temperament and taste.

   Explanation: Adding a semicolon and a brief elaboration increases sentence variety and provides concrete contrast (Strunk & White, 2000).

5. Original: Ricky Martin will remain my favorite singer although he has fallen out of fashion and I think he is terrific. He has done some free concerts for good causes too.

   Revised: Although Ricky Martin has fallen somewhat out of fashion, he remains my favorite singer because his performances are terrific; he has even performed free concerts for good causes.

   Explanation: The revised sentence uses a subordinate clause, a main clause, and a semicolon to vary length and emphasize reasons and actions (Grammarly, n.d.).

Each revision follows established guidance on parallel structure and sentence variety: keep like elements in like grammatical form and vary sentence openings, lengths, and structures for readability and emphasis (Purdue OWL, n.d.; Strunk & White, 2000). Applying these strategies makes prose clearer and more engaging for readers.

References

• Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL). (n.d.). Parallel structure. https://owl.purdue.edu
• Strunk, W., Jr., & White, E. B. (2000). The Elements of Style (4th ed.). Longman.
• American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). APA.
• Cambridge Dictionary. (n.d.). Parallelism in grammar. https://dictionary.cambridge.org
• Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Grammar and usage. https://www.merriam-webster.com
• University of North Carolina Writing Center. (n.d.). Conciseness and structure. https://writingcenter.unc.edu
• Chicago Manual of Style Online. (2017). https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org
• Hacker, D., & Sommers, N. (2020). The Writer's Reference (8th ed.). Bedford/St. Martin's.
• Grammarly. (n.d.). Sentence variety: How to write varied sentences. https://www.grammarly.com
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries. (n.d.). Grammar reference. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com