by Kerry Michael Wood

Created on: January 23, 2012

Punctuation in writing means the skill of inserting certain marks in order to aid the sense of the sentence. The marks that will be discussed the apostrophe, the comma, the semicolon.  These aid in the division of text into sentences, clauses, etc. Proper punctuation is essential to good, solid writing.

Apostrophes

1) The apostrophe has three purposes. First of all, it may signal the possessive case. “The book of Harold” may also be phrased as “Harold’s book.” When a singular noun ends in “s,” the possessive can be made in one of two ways: “the brakes of the bus” = “the bus’ brakes” or “the bus’s brakes.” Exceptions to the two way rule are Jesus, Moses and Greek names ending in “s.”

Moses’ offspring

Jesus’ mercy

Euripides’ dramas

2) An apostrophe may mark the omission of a letter or letters in contractions. “I am going” may be shortened to “I’m going”; “they will work” to “they’ll work”; “never” to “ne’er,” and be especially careful of “will not” which oddly becomes “won’t.”

3) The most common problem of all is the confusion of the contraction “it’s” with the possessive pronoun “its.” Always think of the uncontracted form “it is” when using “it’s” and you won’t write “The cat wagged it’s [it is] tail.”

To make plural possessives with the apostrophe, place the apostrophe after the final “s.”

the car of the Joneses = the Joneses’ car

the dresses of the girls = the girls’ dresses

Also, be careful of the following irregular plurals.

the voices of the people = the people’s voices

the skirts of the women = the women’s skirts

the screams of the children = the children’s screams

To be avoided:

I bought mushroom’s, onion’s, and pickle’s. (No apostrophes with simple plurals.)

We met three priest’s and four monsignor’s.

Commas

4) A comma separates items in a series of three or more. Some feel the comma separating the last from the next-to-last item (called the serial comma or the Harvard comma or the Oxford comma) may be left out); however, omitting it may cause confusion whereas including it never will. Journalists omit the serial comma to save space; non-journalists recommend

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