3. Forming Possessives of Nouns
• When checking to see if you need to form a possessive noun, follow this
example:
- The girls’ purse = The purse of a girl
• If the noun after “of” is a building, an object, or a piece of furniture, then an
apostrophe is not needed. For example:
- Seat of a car = Car seat
4. When you need to make a possessive noun, follow these
rules:
oAdd’s to the singular word (even When you have a word that is plural,
when ending in –s): proper nouns that are possessive,
use an apostrophe after the “s”
- The woman’s house
• - The Thompsonses’ food was
good.
Add ‘s to the last noun to show joint
Add ‘s to the end of compound
possession of an object:
words:
- Melissa and Candy’s apartment.
• - My sister-in-law’s cat.
5. Showing omission of letters
• When using a apostrophe to create a contraction, place apostrophe
where the omitted letter(s) would go. For Instance:
Don’t = do not
I’m = I am
He’ll = he will
Who’s = who is
Shouldn’t = Should not
Didn’t = did not
Could’ve = could have
6. Forming plurals of lowercase letters:
• Apostrophes are also used to form plurals of letters which appear in
lowercase “Three ps” versus “three p’s”. To make lowercase letters
plural, place’s after letter.
• Three iphone 4gs = Three of the ipone model 4g.
• - There are three 4gs operating within the iphone.
• The 1990s = The year in decade from 1990 to 1999.
• - Gansta rap was popular during the 1990s.
• - During the ’90s, Etnies skate shoes were popular.
7. Don’t use apostrophes for personal pronouns,
the relative pronoun who, or for noun plurals.
• When using a possessive pronoun no apostrophe is needed. For
example: Words such as its, yours and her are all possessive pronouns
but, words such as anyone, no one and anybody can be made
possessive.
• Wrong: his’ bike
• Correct: his bike
• Correct: one’s bike
• Correct: anybody’s bike
8. R emember:
• Its vs. It’s have different meanings:
• (it’s) is a contraction for “it is”
• (its) is a possessive pronoun “belonging to it”
• Wrong: He waited for two hours’ to see Twilight.
• Correct: He waited for two hours to see Twilight.
9. P roofreading for apostrophes:
After finishing your paper, this would be a good time to go back
and proofread. Use the strategies listed below to help you
proofread for apostrophes:
If you tend to leave out apostrophes, check every word that
ends in –s or –es to see if it needs an apostrophe.
If you put in too many apostrophes, check every apostrophe
to see if you can justify it with a rule for using apostrophes.
