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Which sentence (or both) is correct between:

  1. Playing sports helps you stay in shape as well as maintain your focus.
  2. Playing sports helps you stay in shape as well as maintaining your focus.

If parallelism is required, then I understand that neither is correct, and the correct version should be: "Playing sports helps you stay in shape as well as maintains your focus". But I have seen other similar instances where parallelism doesn't apply, such as "Anna gives me advice as well as helping me do homework quickly".

Similarly, among:

  1. Playing sports encourages you to communicate with your teammates as well as focus better.
  2. Playing sports encourages you to communicate with your teammates as well as to focus better.
  3. Playing sports encourages you to communicate with your teammates as well as focusing better.

And lastly, between:

  1. I feel comfortable staying at home as well as going outside.
  2. I feel comfortable staying at home as well as go outside.
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11
  • 1
    The first set should be bracketed differently: "Playing sports helps you [stay in shape] as well as [maintain your focus]." It's not "helps" that's in parallel with "maintain": the parallel verbs are "stay" and "maintain." (It might be clearer if you add the optional 'to' before both infinitives: helps you [to] stay... as well as [to] maintain...)
    – Quack E. Duck
    Commented Jul 17 at 5:35
  • 1
    In general, parallelism means you should select the same grammatical form in each place. In all of your sets of sentences, this would mean using the same verb form on either side of the phrase "as well as." So, with this in mind, which option do you believe is the best out of each set of alternatives? Which ones use the same form, and which use different forms? If you're still not clear which to choose after asking yourself this question, or if you're having difficulty determining which forms are being used in each case, please edit the question to make it clearer where you're stuck.
    – Quack E. Duck
    Commented Jul 17 at 5:42
  • 1
    @QuackE.Duck Apologize for the way I named the title as this could mislead the reader into thinking that I am trying to apply parallelism rule to the sentences in the question. What I mean when asking this question is that whether parallelism is strictly required when using "as well as". I have done some research myself and found conflicting opinions even among native speakers. I will correct the title of the question for better clarity.
    – A Slow Learner
    Commented Jul 17 at 6:42
  • 1
    That is a very interesting question then, and one I'm looking forward to reading the answers to! Whether parallelism is an actual grammatical rule or just a stylistic one is something I'm not sure of myself :)
    – Quack E. Duck
    Commented Jul 17 at 6:59
  • 1
    NB The noun is the outdoors.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Jul 17 at 7:34

1 Answer 1

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There are specific reasons why some things work and others don't, but I don't think it's because of parallelism. For example:

(1) Playing sports helps you stay in shape as well as maintain your focus.
(2) Playing sports helps you stay in shape as well as maintaining your focus. <-incorrect
(3) Playing sports helps you stay in shape as well as maintains your focus.

In #1, you is the subject. You stay in shape and you maintain your focus. In #3, Playing sports is the subject. Playing sports helps you and playing sports maintains your focus.

Overall, you can simplify the sentences tremendously by using and instead of as well as. If you don't want to do that, at least do it silently in your mind, because I think the right answer will become more obvious. For example:

Playing sports encourages you to communicate with your teammates as well as and focus better. [OK]
Playing sports encourages you to communicate with your teammates as well as and to focus better. [OK]
Playing sports encourages you to communicate with your teammates as well as and focusing better. <-incorrect

Similarly:

I feel comfortable staying at home as well as and going outside.[OK]
I feel comfortable staying at home as well as and go outside. <-incorrect

And:

Anna gives me advice as well as and helping me do homework quickly. <-incorrect

You should really make the substitution in this example for it to sound acceptable:

Anna gives me advice and helps me do homework quickly.

Or possibly:

Anna gives me advice, which helps me do homework quickly.
(changing the subject from "Anna" to "advice")

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5
  • According to your explanation for (2), does it mean this sentence "Anna gives me advice as well as helping me do homework quickly" is also incorrect?
    – A Slow Learner
    Commented Jul 18 at 9:58
  • Yes, that sentence is incorrect. It should be "helps" because Anna is the subject.
    – swmcdonnell
    Commented Jul 19 at 3:58
  • I added to my answer to include that example.
    – swmcdonnell
    Commented Jul 19 at 4:05
  • @ASlowLearner, swmcdonnell: the sentence with "as well as helping" is not incorrect. See for example this answer to the question Verbs after 'as well as'—is this Merriam-Webster example wrong?.
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 19 at 8:08
  • "Anna gives me advice as well as helping me do homework quickly" is grammatically correct? I disagree. But even if it's technically correct, you would never say that or write that. Ever.
    – swmcdonnell
    Commented Jul 19 at 22:54

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