How to Properly Use an Apostrophe
Apart from making English teachers cringe, misused apostrophes weaken business and professional writing and lower your credibility with readers. Apostrophes are generally used for two purposes: making nouns possessive and indicating missing letters in contractions like "don't" and "you'll." A few aberrations to the general rules for apostrophes are common stumbling blocks for writers, such as when to use "its" and "it's." Some rules are easy to follow but frequently broken. For example, you don't need an apostrophe to make a noun plural. So "making English teachers' cringe" and "the pinata's were full of candy" are both wrong.
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Instructions
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Use apostrophes to make nouns possessive. For example, "the boy's hat" and "Mrs. Smith's front door" are correct uses of an apostrophe. For plural nouns that don't end in "s," add an apostrophe and an "s" to show possession, as in "the children's laughter." For plural nouns that end in "s," just use an apostrophe: "the bulls' horns."
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Choose between two options to make a singular noun ending in "s" possessive. Both "James's hat" and "James' hat" are generally accepted by English grammarians. The "Chicago Manual of Style" recommends that you add the apostrophe and "s," however, and always write "James's hat."
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Form contractions by putting the apostrophe wherever letters are missing. For contractions that combine a verb with the word "not," put the apostrophe between the "n" and the "t," as in "don't," "can't" and "shouldn't." Similarly, put the apostrophe before the "ll" in contractions of the word "will," such as "I'll" and "you'll."
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Be careful when you use the words "its" and "it's," which are easy to confuse. While apostrophes typically denote possession, in this case the possessive goes without the apostrophe. "Its" is the possessive form of "it," meaning that "the cat licked its paw" is correct. "It's" is a contraction of "it is," so "it's raining cats and dogs" is correct.
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Use an apostrophe to make plurals of lowercase letters. This is probably something you'd do rarely, but if you want to, you'll need the apostrophe. "Three d's" is correct. So is "Mind your p's and q's." You don't, however, need an apostrophe to make numbers, symbols or capital letters plural: "Three Ds," "five &s" and "two 5s" are all correct.
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Tips & Warnings
When you have two nouns that share possession, put the apostrophe and "s" after the second noun, as in "Bill and Mary's wedding."
Don't use apostrophes with possessive pronouns like "his," "hers" and "yours," which already signify possession.
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