Possessives,
Contractions, and the Apostrophe
The most ignored punctuation mark, yet one that causes many writers grief and professors' headaches, is the simple apostrophe. The mark signals either a contraction or a possessive word (Can't, John's). Here are spots where writers trip up:
Unneeded and missing apostrophes:
- Writers' need to bring their papers to tutorials at the Writing Center. ("Writers" is simply plural. Omit the apostrophe)
- The Joneses cat is at it again. (That should be "Joneses' cat" For words ending in "s" the rules are very simple. For these words, such as "Joneses," just add the mark. This works for singular or plural words, so "Thomas' dog is at it too." also is correct).
- "Is that cat your's?" (No apostrophe is needed for what is already possessive, so "yours" works fine here).
Misplaced apostrophes:
- The students' car was towed away. (If the students all owned the car, this works. If it belongs to one student, then it would be "student's car")
Contractions and "It": a special case
- This is irregular. For "it is," use "it's." For the possessive, use "its" without the apostrophe. Please don't ask us why!
- By the way, many faculty members consider contractions too informal for academic writing. Thus "cannot" would be safe usage if a professor might mark"can't." Ask the faculty member to be certain of her policies in this case.
Some Plurals and abbreviations are downright odd
- Sometimes writers will include apostrophes for plurals such as DVD's, 1960's, and so on. The grammar texts cannot agree on this. It may be best to omit apostrophes in such cases for the sake of simplicity.
- It is acceptable usage to use an apostrophe before a shortened term or date, such as "my '67 GTO raced his '69 'Cuda the other night."
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