Construction ShiftsSentence Structure

• A construction shift resembles misplaced modifiers in that the modifier is in the wrong place, but the construction shifts require no words to be changed.

• Instead, the modifying word or phrase simply has to be moved over slightly.

Construction Shifts

Construction Shift

• Stepping to avoid the large puddle, I carefully tripped and fell.

• Carefully is an adverb. It must modify a verb. The only question is which verb.

A. NO CHANGEB. Place after steppingC. Place after andD. Place after fell

Non-Parallel Construction

• There are two major types of parallel construction errors. They both involve some kind of list.

• You might see a list of verbs.• When Tom finally came home, Aunt Sally

kissed him, hugged him, and gives him his favorite dessert after dinner.

• The sentence above has an error because all of the items on the list must be in the same tense.

• When Tom finally came home, Aunt Sally kissed him, hugged him, and gives him his favorite dessert after dinner.

• The first two verbs in the example above (kissed and hugged) are in the past tense, but the third verb (gives) is in the present tense. It is just not parallel with the other two

• The correct sentence should read• When Tom finally came home, Aunt Sally

kissed him, hugged him, and gave him his favorite dessert after dinner.

• You might also see a list of nouns.• Three explanations for Sid’s locking

himself in his room were a desire to do his homework, a sense that he needed to hone his college essays, and disliking his brother Tom, who always got away with murder.

• The sentence above is wrong because while “a desire” and “a sense” are both nouns, “disliking” is a gerund, or a verb functioning as a noun.

• Is there a more noun-like way to say the same thing?

• If you said “a dislike of” you are absolutely right. That makes the sentence parallel.

• Three explanations for Sid’s locking himself in his room were a desire to do his homework, a sense that he needed to hone his college essays, and a dislike of his brother Tom, who always got away with murder.

Work Cited

• Martz, Geoff, Kim Magloire, and Theodore Silver. Cracking the ACT. 2007 ed. New York: Random House, 2007.