Conjunctions play a crucial role in creating parallel structures by linking words, phrases, or clauses of equal importance and grammatical structure within a sentence. They help maintain balance and symmetry in writing by ensuring that different parts of a sentence are grammatically consistent. When using conjunctions like “and,” “or,” and “but” in parallel structures, it is essential to ensure that the words or phrases connected by these conjunctions are of the same grammatical form.

For example:

– Using “and”: “She likes to read books and watch movies.” Here, the parallel elements “read books” and “watch movies” are linked by the conjunction “and” to show equal weight and importance.

– Using “or”: “You can either go now or wait until later.” The alternatives “go now” and “wait until later” are presented using the conjunction “or” to maintain parallelism.

– Using “but”: “She is tired but happy.” The contrasting ideas of being “tired” and “happy” are connected using the conjunction “but,” emphasizing the parallel structure.

Maintaining parallelism with conjunctions helps improve sentence clarity, coherence, and readability by ensuring that the parts of the sentence are connected logically and uniformly. It also helps in emphasizing relationships between ideas and highlighting contrasts effectively.