The Apostrophe

The apostrophe is used to show that a noun is possessive: Tom's hat, Mike's bike.

Add 's when the noun:
does not end in s:
I Stole the tire off Mike's bike.
Tim broke the car's door. is singular but ends in s:
New Orleans's football team is the best!
Exception: if punctuation is awkward with the added 's, just use
the apostrophe.
Thomas' use of apostrophes is inadequate.

Add ' only when the noun is pleural and ends in s: The agents' guns were rusted.

Differentiate between joint and individual possession:
Joint Possession (equal possession by both parties): indicates
possession on final noun only:
Have you seen Tarzan and Jane's new monkey? Individual Possession (each party possesses seperately): indicates
possession on each noun:
Jack's and Diane's papers had similar meaning.

Use with compound nouns: use 's or s' on last element only:
My step-father's attitude made him very distasteful.
Our step-fathers' attitudes made them very distasteful.

Use with indefinite pronouns (everyone, someone, no one, etc): use 's:
Someone's car had been broken into.

Use to indicate omissions, as in contractions and numbers:
It's (It is) a tradgedy that jacoby Creek will be logged
We'll (wWe will) never forget the flood of '64 (1964)

Use 's to pluralize numbers, letters, and words mentioned as numbers, letters, and words, and to pluralize abbreviations:
The singers' mouths formed perfect O's
I received straight A's in English 100
We're tired of your sorry's
The bouncer rejected our fake ID's
Exception: a lone s is used when referring to decades:
Who can forget the 1960s?

Avoid common misuses:
Some professors (not professor's) are given parking permits
Each building has its (not it's) own conference room

Watch homophones:

Possessive Pronouns	Contractions	Adverb
Their	They're (they are)	There
Its	It's (It is)
Your	You're (You are)

The Hyphen

Consult your dictionary for information concerning the treatment of compound words:
Freewrite? Free-write? Free write?

Use a hyphen when two or more words function together as an adjective placed before a noun; don't hyphenate when the adjective follows the noun:
Burt Reynolds is no longer a well-known actor
After this movie Burt Reynolds will be well known

Don't use a hyphen to connect modifiers to ly adverbs:
The turtle is sloyly moving through the desert

Use hyphens to suspend itens in a series:
Did you get a first-, second-, or third place ribbon?

Use a hyphen with the written form of fractions and with compound numbers between twenty-one to ninety-nine:
Two hundred and twenty-nine
one-half

Use a hyphen with the following prefixes: all-, ex- (where ex- means former), and self-. Also use a hyphen with the suffix -elect:
Ronald Reagan is thankfully our ex-president
John is a self-providing parent to his children

Use a hyphen to avoid ambiguity:
I can't tell the difference between re-creation and recreation without a hyphen

Use a hyphen to divide a word at the end of a line only if the word is more than one syllable.
Divide the word at the syllable:

Correct	Incorrect
Fido eats his dog- food every day	Fido eats his do- gfood every day

Never divide a word so that one letter ends a line or so that fewer than three letters begin a line:
We will never make hyphen errors a-
gain. (WRONG!)

Use a hyphen with product and store names; don't follow correct English grammar:
K-Mart
Q-Tip
7-11