When do apostrophes go after the s

Take a quick test. Rules for placing the apostrophe before or after the "s" When the possessor is singular , the apostrophe goes before the "s. You have a choice that depends on how you yes, you personally say it. When the possessor is plural but doesn't end "s," the apostrophe goes before the "s. Once you've put your possessive apostrophe in place, the letters to the left of the apostrophe should be the possessor spelled perfectly. Look at the examples above, the possessors are man , ladies , Wales , and men.

Ready for the Test? Here is a confirmatory test for this lesson. Single or double quotation marks denote either speech or a quotation. Double quotes are preferred in the United States. Regardless, the style of opening and closing quotation marks must match. For speech within speech, use double quotation marks on the outside, and single marks on the inner quotation.

When quoted text is interrupted, a closing quotation mark is used before the interruption, and an opening quotation mark is used after the interruption. Commas are often used before and after the phrase as well. Quotation marks are not used for paraphrased speech because a paraphrase is not a direct quote.

In most cases, quotations that span multiple paragraphs should be set as block quotations, and thus do not require quotation marks. When quotation marks are used for multiple-paragraph quotations, the convention in English is to give opening quotation marks to the first and each subsequent paragraph, using closing quotation marks only for the final paragraph of the quotation.

In research papers and literary analyses writers often need to quote a sentence or a phrase. One will need to use quotation marks when quoting authors to show which words are from the other work. Here is an example sentence:. As a rule, a whole publication should be italicized. The titles of sections within a larger publication or of smaller works such as poems, short stories, named chapters, journal papers, newspaper articles, TV show episodes, editorial sections of websites, etc.

Quotation marks can also offset a nickname embedded in an actual name, or a false or ironic title embedded in an actual title. Either quotation marks or italics can indicate when a word refers to the word itself rather than its associated concept i. Quotes indicating verbal irony or another special use are sometimes called scare quotes. Quotation marks are also sometimes used to indicate that the writer realizes that a word is not being used in its current commonly accepted sense.

Rule 2b. Correct: Apostrophes are confusing. In special cases, such as when forming a plural of a word that is not normally a noun, some writers add an apostrophe for clarity. In that sentence, the verb do is used as a plural noun, and the apostrophe was added because the writer felt that dos was confusing.

Imagine the confusion if you wrote that sentence without apostrophes. Readers would see as and us , and feel lost. Rule 2c. English also has many irregular nouns child, nucleus, tooth , etc. These nouns become plural by changing their spelling, sometimes becoming quite different words. Rule 2d. Things can get really confusing with the possessive plurals of proper names ending in s , ch , z , such as Hastings , Jones , Birch , and Sanchez.

Most would call them the "Hastings. The plural of Hastings is Hastingses. The members of the Birch family are the Birches. Rule 2e. Never use an apostrophe to make a name plural. Correct: The Wilsons are here. Correct: We visited the Sanchezes.

Rule 3. If the compound noun e. Rule 4a. Note: As the above examples demonstrate, when one of the co-owners is written as a pronoun, use possessive adjectives my , your , her , our , their. Avoid possessive pronouns mine , yours , hers , ours , theirs in such constructions.

It should be mentioned that compound possessives are often clunky as well as confusing. Big difference. Such ambiguous sentences should just be rewritten. Rule 4b. In cases of separate rather than joint possession, use the possessive form for both. The homes belong to both of them. Rule 5. Use an apostrophe with contractions.

The apostrophe is placed where a letter or letters have been removed. Rule 6.