When making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, be sure to use ____________________. Please fill in the blank with the words that best illustrate parallel structure. A) creamy peanut butter, grape jelly, and white bread B) a clean knife, peanut butter and smoothing on the peanut butter. C) long strokes to spread the peanut butter and smearing the jelly on top of it. D) a clean knife, a full jar of peanut butter and smoothing on the peanut butter.

A parallel structure or construction is when different phrases or clauses have the same grammatical structure and therefore are in balance. This implies, in a parallel structure you use the same grammatical structure to relate a set of items to another phrase and show they all have the same importance. In this case, "creamy peanut butter, grape jelly, and white bread" follow a parallel structure because all the elements are presented in the same way; an adjective of the element such as "creamy, grape and white" is first presented and the element is named "peanut butter, jelly and bread" also, all the elements are separated by commas or "and" which implies all of them have the same level of importance, finally the elements are presented in the same order of the first sentence, which also creates a balance between both phrases. Thus, sentence A follows a parallel structure because all elements follow the same grammatical pattern (Adjective+noun), all elements have the same importance and are related in the same order than in the first sentence.