Apostrophes

Read this section to learn about apostrophes, another important and multi-purpose punctuation. What you read here will connect to ideas you'll read about in the next section about confused words.

Apostrophes

The final type of punctuation you will study in this course is the apostrophe. Read this article about the apostrophe and then complete the practice activity. When you finish, check your answers against the answer key.  After you check your work, review commas, colons, semicolons, dashes, and quotation marks.

  • Which type of punctuation are you most confident using in your writing? Why? 
  • Which type of punctuation are you least confident using? Why?
  • Write down two specific questions you have about using punctuation effectively.
  • Review your notes about all of the punctuation marks you studied in this course. Can you answer your two questions?

The two uses of the APOSTROPHE are:

  • to turn a noun into a modifier. Usually this is done to form the POSSESSIVECASE – the form of a noun or pronoun that shows possession or ownership of one thing by another; and
  • to form CONTRACTIONS – two-word combinations formed by leaving outcertain letters which are indicated by an APOSTROPHE.

Source: Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, http://opencourselibrary.org/eng-9y-pre-college-english/
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