1. Placing the plates of a parallel-plate capacitor farther apart will increase the capacitance. The farther apart they are, the more capacitance they can hold.
2. If the plates of a capacitor have different areas, they will not acquire the same charge when the capacitor is connected. This is because the capacitance depends on the geometrical arrangement of the conductors.
3. In order to produce a large equivalent capacitance they should be placed in parallel. In order to produce a really small equivalent capacitance they should be placed in series.