Wize Core English Textbook > English Writing Mechanics

Subject-Verb Agreement
A common grammar error that students make is having subject-verb agreement problems. 
A subject-verb agreement situation refers to the plurality of the subject and the corresponding plurality of the verb. 
Both subjects and verbs must refer to the same plurality of items. 
A singular noun operating as the sentence's subject must have a singular verb. A plural subject must have a plural verb.

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Verb Tense Consistency
One common mistake is to shift verb tenses throughout a piece of writing. 
When referring to texts - either primary or secondary - always refer to them using present-tense verbs. 
It is as if the action of a text exists in a forever present. 
The author "writes"; the speaker "speaks"; the character "acts". Only when referring to actual historical events should past tense verbs be used 
Example: World War 1 began with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and scholar, Lindy Ledohowski, writes that the First World War impacts Canadians in a variety of ways to this day.

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Parallelism

Parallelism refers to sentence structures where what appears before a dividing component of some sort must parallel what appears on the other side of the dividing component.

Example: I enjoy reading books and watching movies; I also enjoy eating cake.

Example: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."