A list that preserved the tasks
1A nature club prepared instructions for volunteers who would observe birds near a river. Each volunteer had three tasks: to record the location, describe the weather, and count the birds. The coordinator wanted the instructions to show that these actions belonged to the same observation routine.
2An early draft read, 'Volunteers should record the location, describing the weather, and a count of the birds.' Readers could recognize the topic, but the items did not fit the same grammatical frame. The editor returned to the word should and checked whether each item could follow it. This revealed why the list needed revision.
3A second draft was grammatically parallel but changed count the birds to feed the birds. The coordinator rejected it because the task was observation, not feeding. The final check therefore had two parts: do the items fit the same frame, and do they preserve the assigned actions? Matching endings alone could not answer both questions.