Divergent parallels

This quotation is taken from From The Independent online 1.7.24:

Dr Imafidon has worked on a wide range of Stem projects, including writing books on the industry, hosting podcasts and appearing on television shows.…

Why does the dyad “including writing” seem clumsy?

The ing - ing repetition is one reason.

Less obvious, though another reason for it to offend the mind's ear, is the ungainly mid-stride leap from one grammatical form to another. We expect examples of a type of thing (“projects”) to be things too (other nouns) rather than actions (verbs). So we might do better to say

Dr Imafidon has been involved in a wide range of Stem projects, writing books on the industry, hosting podcasts, appearing on television shows, and so on …

or

Dr Imafidon has worked on a wide range of Stem projects about the industry, including books, podcasts, and television shows …

although the “inert” noun version loses Dr Imafidon’s own role in these activities.

This is a similar point to the familiar recommendation that we ensure that each item in a list is grammatically parallel.

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