The kinds of proof a public speaker may use fall into four categories: mythos, ethos, pathos, and logos.

The outline for the essay would have four major divisions, each dealing with one of the four kinds of proof. To emphasize the coordination of these parts, a writer might make four topic sentences like these:

I. One kind of proof a public speaker may use to convince an audience is mythos.

II. A second kind of proof a public speaker may use is ethos.

III. Another kind of proof a public speaker may use is pathos.

IV. The final kind of proof a public speaker may use is logos.

Here is another example:

The effects of the attack on the World Trade Center have been military, social, political, and economic.

The topic sentences for the main points in the essay might be as follows:

I. One effect of the attack on the World Trade Center has been a renewed emphasis on military preparedness.

II. Another effect of the attack on the World Trade Center has been to draw together American society while simultaneously creating divisions between cultural and ethnic groups.

III. A third effect of the attack on the World Trade Center has been to alter the political balance of power by giving the Republican Party an advantage on issues of national defense.

IV. The most immediate and obvious effect of the attack on the World Trade Center has been the damage to the American economy.

The highlighted words constitute the heart of each topic sentence, the subject (with its modifiers) and verb, and signal the logical coordination of one to the other while connecting them all to the thesis sentence.

Using parallelism to signal the coordinate parts of a longer text is useful in any mode of discourse when the material to be covered constitutes a list. It may be a list of divisions or parts, of causes or effects, of problems or solutions, of points of comparison or contrast, of steps in a process, or of arguments.

Here is an example of how professional writers do it. Below are the topic sentences from William Lutz's essay, "Double Speak." His organizing sentence is "There are at least four kinds of doublespeak."

• The first [kind] is the euphemism, an inoffensive or positive word or phrase used to avoid a harsh, unpleasant, or distasteful reality.

• A second kind of doublespeak is jargon, the specialized language of a trade, profession, or similar group, such as that used by doctors,lawyers, engineers, educators, or car mechanics.

• A third kind of doublespeak is gobbledygook or bureaucratese.

• The fourth kind of doublespeak is inflated language that is designed to make the ordinary seem extraordinary; to make everyday things seem impressive; to give an air of importance to people, situations, or things that would not normally be considered important; to make the simple seem complex.

Lutz places each term in the general category of doublespeak by using a subject-verb-predicate noun clause. Except for the missing word "kind" in the first clause, the four independent clauses are alike. He then uses several different methods to distinguish one type of doublespeak from the others.

The first two sentences have appositives which are themselves modified by nominative absolutes. In the third sentence, the predicate noun "gobbledygook" is defined by an independent clause. And in the last, the predicate noun "inflated language" is modified by a relative adjective clause. The variety of grammatical constructions in the second part of each sentence results in parallelism that is less rigid then that of the examples above.

The repeated subject-verb predicate noun clause in each sentence, followed by different modifying elements, has an effect analogous to that in a musical composition where the repetition of musical phrases at different intervals constitutes a motif connecting the parts and giving the whole both unity and coherence. The different modifying elements Lutz's uses are like improvisations that comment upon a musical theme, giving variety to a composition.

This analogy is not just descriptive but instructive as well. It is the reader's ear more than his eye that carries him through a text, or that makes him stumble and backtrack. When the text does not sound right, it signals a problem with the writer's expression which in turn points to a problem with his thought. An idea that is not clearly understood cannot be clearly expressed. When the words are imprecise and the grammar muddled, so is the thinking.

The fact that the sound of a text is more important for coherence than the appearance is demonstrated by the fact that it is hard to proofread writing for typographical errors, incorrect spelling, and even missing words or phrases. When a reader "gets with" the melody of a text, the sound carries him over these problems. He uses his ear to anticipate what the next notes should be, and so often fails to see what is actually on the page.

However, it is interesting that a reader is often more sensitive to errors in punctuation than to the other problems noted above. This is because punctuation indicates the cadence of sentences. Punctuation marks appear at the bounderies of phrases and clauses and tell the reader when to take a breath. When these are missing or misplaced, the reader cannot sing the melody of the text to himself any more than he could sing it aloud without the proper musical notation. Eye-voice span studies show that a reader's eye movements are affected by phrase structure bounderies since the eye tends to rest at these points.

When writers use parallel structure in sentences to state the main points in a discourse, the sentences contribute to unity and coherence by reminding readers that the points are logically coordinate with one another and subordinate to the organizing sentence. This logical coordination is emphasized not just by what is said but also by the way it sounds.

From this it follows that revision is a matter for the ear. A good writer continues to rewirte until the text sounds right. He then edits to make sure it looks right.