Apostrophes To Show Contractions
Apostrophes To Show Contractions
Apostrophes To Show Contractions
Apostrophes to show
contractions
11 of
of 46
46
Apostrophes
Apostrophes () are the most commonly misused punctuation
mark. They have three main uses. They show:
1. contractions
2. possession
3. unusual plurals
Contractions are shortened forms of words which have
letters missing. The apostrophe is used in place of the
missing letters, e.g.
Its is short for It is.
Contractions
We use contractions a lot when we are speaking aloud
because they save time and sound informal.
Fill in the grid below with as many contractions as you can.
contraction
original words
Its
It is
Apostrophes to show
possession
44 of
of 46
46
Possession
Apostrophes are also used to show possession: who or what
owns something, e.g.
This is Maxs book means This book belongs to Max.
Adding an apostrophe and an s after a
person, place or thing shows that he/she/it are
the owner of the other noun in the sentence.
Here are some more examples:
1. Megans pet tarantula is called Mogg.
2. Moggs owner is called Megan.
Possession
To show possession we normally add an apostrophe and an s
after the word.
We dont add the extra s, however, if the word is a plural
noun because it already ends in an s, and it would become
too difficult to pronounce, e.g.
1. The toilets hand-driers are broken.
2. You only have two weeks holiday.
3. Those plants leaves are brown.
Possessive pronouns
Possessive pronouns
77 of
of 46
46
Possessive pronouns
The exception to the apostrophe rule are these possessive
pronouns which show possession without apostrophes:
yours
not yous
his
not hes
hers
not shes
its
not its
ours
not ours
theirs
not theirs
whose
not whos
Why do you think possessive plurals are written
differently? What could they be confused with?
8 of 46
Possessive pronouns
Here are some examples of the possessive pronouns which
do not need apostrophes.
1. His new car is better than mine.
2. The bird flapped its wings.
3. Is my drawing better than hers?
4. Are these books the same as yours?
5. Shall we use your plates or ours?
Apostrophes to show
unusual plurals
10
10 of
of 46
46
Unusual plurals
The final use of apostrophes is to show unusual plurals, such
as number, letters and symbols, which would be unreadable
otherwise, e.g.
1. There is one c and two ss in the word necessary.
2. Continental 7s are scored with horizontal lines.
3. You must mind your ps and qs around
strangers.
4. Your mobile phone number is easy to remember
because there are three 0s in it.
5. My postcode has two Bs in it.
Write five sentences which include numbers and
letters that are pluralized with apostrophes.
11 of 46
Apostrophe activities
Apostrophe activities
12
12 of
of 46
46
Its/its quiz
13 of 46
Apostrophes activity
14 of 46
Colons
Colons
15
15 of
of 46
46
Colons
A colon (:) shows that the words which follow it are an
explanation or an example of what is written before it, e.g.
A hamburger is made up of three layers: the bottom
half of the bun, the burger and the top half of the bun.
A colon is usually placed after a complete sentence but it
can be followed by many or few words, e.g.
The environment is facing a huge threat: global warming.
Colons are placed directly after the last word of the main
idea and they are followed by one space only. They are
never followed by either a hyphen (-) or a dash ().
16 of 46
Semicolons
Semicolons
17
17 of
of 46
46
Semicolons
A semicolon (;) joins two complete sentences into one.
This is because some sentences are too closely related to be
separated by a full stop but they are missing a connecting
word, such as and or but, e.g.
Eating chocolate in moderation is fine;
eating chocolate to excess is bad.
The semicolon joins the separate statements about chocolate
into one sentence which acts like a warning: eating a little
chocolate is fine but beware of eating a lot because it is bad.
It suggests that the first event is related to the second event.
18 of 46
Semicolons
Here are some more examples of sentences with semicolons:
1. Megan was angry; Tom was not listening.
2. It was the best year; it was the worst year.
3. Max felt hot; the sun was blazing.
4. I dont like cabbage; I dont like carrots.
2. Using a colon changes the two events into one event with an
explanation: Lei is (quite cruelly) happy because Max is sad.
3. The semicolon links the two events. Lei, therefore, may be
happy that Max is sad, or Max may be sad that Lei is happy.
Try to write five sentences using semicolons to
link two sentences together.
20 of 46
21 of 46
22
22 of
of 46
46
Brackets
Brackets
23
23 of
of 46
46
Round brackets
I want to be able to mildly distract
my readers with extra information
about the sports players
Brackets allow you to add extra information to a sentence,
which is useful but not necessary or to add your opinion, e.g.
Charlie Johnson (aged 21 years) has
(unfortunately) played for Charlton for
three seasons.
The sentence still makes sense without the information in the
brackets, e.g.
Charlie Johnson has played for Charlton for three years.
TIP: Brackets add extra details to a sentence
and are only a mild distraction.
24 of 46
Dashes
Dashes
26
26 of
of 46
46
Pairs of dashes
I want to be able to distract my
readers with dramatic background
information on my characters
Commas
Commas
29
29 of
of 46
46
Pairs of commas
Megan, do you know how to use
punctuation to add some information
that wont disrupt the flow?
Oh yes, I remember, you need
to use pairs of commas
Sometimes, we want to add information to make our writing
clearer, without distracting the reader from the sentence, e.g.
John, who hated cola, bought a lemonade in the caf.
TIP: Pairs of commas add extra details to a
sentence without ruining the flow.
30 of 46
Punctuation game
32 of 46
Speech marks
Speech marks
33
33 of
of 46
46
Direct speech
Before writing my novel, I need to
know how to write down the speeches
of my characters.
Speech marks
To add some direct speech in a larger sentence, introduce it
with a comma and enclose it in speech marks, e.g.
Ahmad turned to Samy and said, You are
amazing.
If the direct speech forms a complete sentence, it must start
with a capital letter and finish with a full stop inside of the
speech marks.
However, if the speech is only part of a sentence, it must
start in lower case and finish with a comma inside of the
speech marks, e.g.
Speech marks
It is also possible to interrupt a speech so that you can add
a description about the speech or speaker, e.g.
Punctuation activities
38
38 of
of 46
46
Follow on activity
Write down some sentences which Tom could use in a
sports article and Megan could use in a novel.
Include some apostrophes, colons, semicolons, brackets,
dashes, pairs of commas and some direct speech in speech
marks.
Now rewrite the sentences without punctuation!
Swap your sentences with a partner and ask them to add the
correct punctuation.
If they used different punctuation to you, discuss why each
choice was made (you might both be right!).
39 of 46
Punctuation summary
To sum up how these forms of use punctuation:
apostrophes are used to represent the missing letters in
contractions (cant) and to show possession
colons help you to provide and explanation or example in
one sentence