Help with Apostrophes

Getting Help with Apostrophes

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The apostrophe is a real grammar villain. It is responsible for lots of serious writing errors. In fact, of all the punctuation marks, the apostrophe is the one with most potential to damage your credibility because your readers will expect you to know how to use apostrophes. apostrophes errors

Every apostrophe on the side of this van is wrong.

Some learning points related to apostrophes are simple, but many are not. This page has a video, a game, and our full list of apostrophe-related lessons to help you master apostrophes.

Our lessons cover everything from simple concepts such as apostrophes in contractions (e.g., isn't) to more complex issues such as showing joint possession (Jack and Jill's houses vs Jack's and Jill's houses).

Table of Contents

Our Main Lesson on Using Apostrophes
Apostrophe Placement Game
Specific Help with Using Apostrophes
Apostrophe Exercises
Video Lesson

Our Main Lesson on Using Apostrophes

All the rules for using apostrophes are covered in this lesson:

Using Apostrophes

Apostrophe Placement Game

If you're sure you know how to use apostrophes, you can test yourself with this Tetris-style game, which tests the following:

apostrophes for possession (e.g., the dog's bone, men's attitude)
apostrophes in time expressions (e.g., two days' notice, a week's salary)

Each falling question has a correct apostrophe and a wrong one.
Click on the correct one to score points and to make the question disappear.
If you click on the wrong one (or do not click), the question will fall to the bottom.
The wrongly answered or unanswered questions will start to build up.
When the screen is full, you're toast.
(The harder the level, the more points you score per correct answer.)
Good luck!

Specific Help with Using Apostrophes

If you need help with a specific topic related to apostrophes, you will find a lesson among these more-focused topics:

Apostrophe Exercises

Here are the exercises related to using apostrophes:

Apostrophe exercise (general use). This exercise contains 28 dual-choice questions covering the use of apostrophes in contractions (e.g., can't, won't), in temporal expressions (2 days' pay), and for possession (the dog's dinner, the dogs' dinner).
Apostrophe exercise (possession). This exercise contains 18 multiple-choice questions on apostrophes for possession.
Possessive case exercise. This exercise contains 18 multiple-choice questions on the possessive case in general.
Apostrophe exercise (general use). This exercise contains 18 multiple-choice questions on the general use of apostrophes.
Apostrophe exercise (temporal expressions). This exercise contains 20 multiple-choice questions on the use of apostrophes in temporal expressions (e.g., a day's pay, two years' insurance).