Parallel Structures

Modern art and music can cause conflicts in existing cultural values and can cause misinterpretation or even losing their originality in cultural identity.

If you want to pack a list of items into a single sentence, then these items need to be parallel. What do we mean by items and what do I mean by parallel?

Items in parallel structures include:

noun phrases
verb phrases
preposition phrases

Parallel means that all of the items are the same type - all nouns, all verb phrases, etc.

Parallel nouns

Our opening example could be written using noun phrases only:

Modern art and music can cause conflicts in existing cultural values, misinterpretation, or even loss of originality in cultural identity.

(Notice that the final noun is preceded by or even as a substitute for and.)

..in which we have one verb - cause - and three noun phrases separated by commas:

conflicts in existing cultural values
misinterpretation
loss of originality in cultural identity

Parallel verbs

Alternatively the sentence could be written using verb phrases only, again separated by commas:

Modern art and music can cause conflicts in existing cultural values, lead to misinterpretation, or even result in loss of originality in cultural identity.

Parallelism and IELTS

Accurate parallel structures can help to increase your IELTS score for GRA (they're 'structural'), LR (noun phrases are probably the most common item), and even CC (non-parallel structures are difficult to understand).

Ha! There - I just used a parallel structure built from nouns (GRA, LR, CC)!