Grammar Workshop Series
Unit 8
Punctuation: Part 2
Apostrophes, Quotation Marks, Dashes,
Parentheses, and More
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Apostrophes: Two Functions
1.
•
Possessive Case of Nouns and Indefinite Pronouns
–
Apostrophes show a kind of ownership
•
Correct: “The movie’s plot is boring.”
•
Correct: “The artist’s style was controversial.”
•
Correct: “Someone’s book was left on the table.”
•
Correct: “Something’s aroma is appealing.”
Keep in mind that possession can be indicated in different ways.
You don’t need to use an apostrophe.
–
–
Correct: “The instructor’s comments were useful.”
Correct: “The comments of the instructor were useful.”
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Apostrophes: Two Functions
2. Contractions
• The apostrophe takes the place of one or more
letters
It’s = it is
Its = possessive pronoun
They’re = they are
Their = possessive
pronoun
Who’s = who is
Whose = possessive
pronoun
You’re = you are
Your = possessive
pronoun
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Apostrophe Confusion Areas
1. You can add either apostrophe plus s or just an
apostrophe to nouns whose basic forms end in “s.”
Like so:
– Correct: “Chris’s car was stolen.”
– Correct: “Chris’ car was stolen.”
But you must ONLY add an apostrophe to plural
nouns ending in “s.” So …
– Error: “The boys’s testimony was sad.”
– Correct: “The boys’ testimony was sad.”
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Apostrophe Confusion Areas
3. You add an apostrophe and “s” to the last word in compound
phrase:
– Correct: “His mother-in-law’s friend was strange.”
– Correct: “The soccer player’s friend was strange.”
4. You add apostrophe and “s” to each individual possession, like so:
– “Zubin’s and Aubrey’s houses need paint jobs.” (two houses,
owned by two different peoiple)
But you only indicate possession in the last noun of a compound
structure
– “Zubin and Aubrey’s house needs a paint job.” (one house
owned by two people)
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Apostrophe Confusion Areas
5. Do NOT use an apostrophe with possessive pronouns.
Correct: That is our car.
Correct: The car is ours.
Error: The car is our’s.
Correct: That is their car.
Correct: The car is theirs.
Error: The car is their’s.
Correct: Whose car is that?
Error: Who’s car is that?
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Apostrophes Confusion Areas
6. Use apostrophes in contractions;
however, keep in mind that in in academic
writing you should not use contractions.
– Didn’t (did not)
– Isn’t (is not)
– It’s (it is)
– Who’s (who is)
– You’re (you are)
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Apostrophe Confusion Areas
7. Letters meant as letters SHOULD use an
apostrophe
– Error: “The sign was missing As and Ms.”
– Correct: The sign was missing A’s and M’s.”
8. Letters meant as words SHOULD NOT use an
apostrophe.
– Error: “The store has CD’s for sale.”
– Correct: “The store has CDs for sale.”
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Apostrophe Confusion Areas
9. Plural Numbers do NOT use an
apostrophe
– Error: “The winning lottery number had a lot of
9’s in it.”
– Correct: “The winning lottery number had a lot
of 9s in it.”
10. Dates do NOT use an apostrophe
– Error: “I can barely remember the 1990’s.”
– Correct: “I can barely remember the 1990s.”
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Quotation Marks
• Use them to enclose direct quotations (the exact
spoken / written words of speaker or writer)
– Correct (MLA format): President Lyndon
Johnson famously referred to the “strong
thread of moral purpose which runs through
the fabric of American history” (77).
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Quotation Marks
• Use them to refer to short works published in a
collection
– i.e., use quotation marks with short stories, essays,
poems, articles, pamphlets, brochures, songs,
individual episodes of a series
• DO NOT USE them to refer to longer,
independently published works
– i.e., use underlines or italics with novels, television
series, movies, monographs, paintings
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Quotation Marks
• Use them to indicate irony or other nonliteral meanings
– The proposed tax “reform” is actually a tax
increase.
– The “help” I received from my TA made me
fail the essay.
•
NOTE: Use this convention sparingly and only if you are a confident
writer. It is often not appropriate for academic writing, and rarely if
ever is it essential. Do not use them to indicate sarcasm, as in the
second example above: this is not appropriate for academic writing.
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Quotation Marks
• Use them to refer to words that you are
discussing:
– Error: People often use affect instead of effect
in their writing.
– Correct: People often use “affect” instead of
“effect” in their writing.
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Quotation Marks
• Use them to introduce and define technical terms, but
only use quotation marks the first time the term appears
in your essay. The quotation marks show that the term is
special and new, and draw the reader’s attention to it;
once you’ve used/defined it, this is no longer necessary.
– Correct: “Historiography” is the study of the processes
by which historical knowledge is obtained and
transmitted. Generally, historiography examines the
writing of history by looking at such elements as
authorship, sourcing, interpretation, style, bias, and
audience.
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Quotation Marks
• Do NOT employ them to indicate the use of
slang, a cliché, or to make a point:
– Error: Today’s runway models “eat like birds” in an
effort to remain thin.
– Correct: Today’s runway models eat almost nothing in
an effort to remain thin.
– Error: A “massive percentage” of the internet contains
uncensored pornography.
– Correct: A massive percentage of the internet
contains uncensored pornography.
– Error: Picasso was an important “painter” who
revolutionized the art world.
– Correct: Picasso was an important painter who
revolutionized the art world.
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Dashes
You can use two hyphens (--) together to produce them.
You don’t need a space before, in the middle of, or after a
dash.
Dashes let you interrupt a sentence to add information, and
so they should be used in middle or at end of sentence.
They are fairly dramatic, showy things, and so they should
be used infrequently in academic writing.
The material inside the dashes should be extra or
additional, and so the sentence should make grammatical
and logical sense even if you take out the dashes and the
material they contain.
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Dashes
We use dashes to provide examples or define a
term:
• Correct: “Recent historiographers—John Tosh,
W.H. Walsh, and Hayden White—have
transformed our understanding of how history is
written.”
• Correct: “Baroque art—characterized by great
drama, rich deep color, and intense light and
dark shadows—focused on the action of an
event rather than the moment before the action
took place.”
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Dashes
• We also use them to present appositive
elements:
Correct: “The greatest Dutch Baroque painter—
Vermeer—used a technique that has come to
be known in some circles as underpainting.”
• And we use them to establish contrast:
Correct: “The greatest advantage—or
disadvantage—of the internet is that anyone
can have a voice.”
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Parentheses (
)
• Opposite of dashes
• Add information, but de-emphasize what
they enclose
– Dashes emphasize
– Parentheses de-emphasize
• Use sparingly
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Parentheses ( )
• Use to explain:
– Correct: “I was really upset at their behaviour (they
were laughing behind my back) and so took
immediate action (I asked them to leave the room).”
• Use to provide an example:
– “Other cities (Dresden, for example) were completely
destroyed in the war.”
• Use for an aside:
– “The good students (from Art History of course) were
interested in improving their writing skills.”
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Brackets [ ]
• Use to point out an error or to add information in a
quotation:
– Correct: He was “thinking about it [the test] all day”
(44).
– Correct: A journalist wrote, “The judge accepted an
[sic] plea of not guilty.”
– Correct: The sign read “Your [sic] welcome to enter
the store.”
• NOTE: “sic” means “so” or “thus” in Latin
• The bracket is your way of saying “The author I’m
quoting wrote this, not me,” or “I’m adding a word to the
quote to make it clearer.”
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