{"id":802,"date":"2025-04-21T16:18:23","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T16:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/content.one.lumenlearning.com\/englishcomp1\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=802"},"modified":"2025-07-25T15:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T15:06:07","slug":"apostrophes-and-quotation-marks-learn-it-2","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/content.one.lumenlearning.com\/englishcomp1\/chapter\/apostrophes-and-quotation-marks-learn-it-2\/","title":{"raw":"Apostrophes and Quotation Marks: Learn It 2","rendered":"Apostrophes and Quotation Marks: Learn It 2"},"content":{"raw":"<h3>Contractions<\/h3>\r\nA contraction is a shortened phrase. \"He will\" becomes \"he\u2019ll\", \"are not\" becomes \"aren\u2019t\", \"would have\" becomes \"would\u2019ve\", and \"it is\" becomes \"it\u2019s\". In all of these cases, the apostrophe stands in for the missing letters.\r\n\r\nYou may find yourself being steered away from using contractions in your papers. Some feel that contractions are stylistically inappropriate in formal writing.\u00a0Follow your teacher\u2019s preference, but keep in mind that leaving out contractions can often make your words sound too formal and stilted.\r\n\r\n<section class=\"textbox example\" aria-label=\"Example\">\r\n<h4>Possessive pronouns\u00a0vs.\u00a0contractions<\/h4>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>your vs. you\u2019re<\/li>\r\n \t<li>its vs. it\u2019s<\/li>\r\n \t<li>their vs. they\u2019re<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nAll three of these pairs are the same kind of pair: a possessive pronoun and a contracted version of a pronoun + to be (you\u2019re = you are; it\u2019s = it is; they\u2019re = they are). These are easy to mix up (especially its\/it\u2019s) because\u2014as we\u2019ve learned\u2014an apostrophe + s indicates possession. The best way to use these correctly is to try replacing the word with the expanded version of the contraction.\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>I think it\u2019s going to rain \u2192 I think it is going to rain.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>It\u2019s always means it is.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nIf the word can be replaced by two words (it\u2019s\u00a0\u2192 it is) then it is a contraction, and it needs an apostrophe (remember, the apostrophe is there to replace the missing letters).\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>I don\u2019t want to go to your play \u2192\u00a0I don\u2019t want to go to you are play.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nIf the word cannot be replaced by two words (your\u00a0\u2192 you are) then it does not need an apostrophe.\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>You\u2019re always means you are.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nAnd if you are not sure, you can always avoid <em>you\u2019re<\/em> and <em>it\u2019s<\/em> without sounding stilted. You are always able to avoid certain words; it is not that hard to do!\r\n\r\n<\/section><section class=\"textbox interact\" aria-label=\"Interact\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/lumenlearning.h5p.com\/content\/1292085783827580428\/embed\" width=\"1089\" height=\"638\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" aria-label=\"Apostrophe 2\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/section>","rendered":"<h3>Contractions<\/h3>\n<p>A contraction is a shortened phrase. &#8220;He will&#8221; becomes &#8220;he\u2019ll&#8221;, &#8220;are not&#8221; becomes &#8220;aren\u2019t&#8221;, &#8220;would have&#8221; becomes &#8220;would\u2019ve&#8221;, and &#8220;it is&#8221; becomes &#8220;it\u2019s&#8221;. In all of these cases, the apostrophe stands in for the missing letters.<\/p>\n<p>You may find yourself being steered away from using contractions in your papers. Some feel that contractions are stylistically inappropriate in formal writing.\u00a0Follow your teacher\u2019s preference, but keep in mind that leaving out contractions can often make your words sound too formal and stilted.<\/p>\n<section class=\"textbox example\" aria-label=\"Example\">\n<h4>Possessive pronouns\u00a0vs.\u00a0contractions<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>your vs. you\u2019re<\/li>\n<li>its vs. it\u2019s<\/li>\n<li>their vs. they\u2019re<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All three of these pairs are the same kind of pair: a possessive pronoun and a contracted version of a pronoun + to be (you\u2019re = you are; it\u2019s = it is; they\u2019re = they are). These are easy to mix up (especially its\/it\u2019s) because\u2014as we\u2019ve learned\u2014an apostrophe + s indicates possession. The best way to use these correctly is to try replacing the word with the expanded version of the contraction.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I think it\u2019s going to rain \u2192 I think it is going to rain.<\/li>\n<li>It\u2019s always means it is.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If the word can be replaced by two words (it\u2019s\u00a0\u2192 it is) then it is a contraction, and it needs an apostrophe (remember, the apostrophe is there to replace the missing letters).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I don\u2019t want to go to your play \u2192\u00a0I don\u2019t want to go to you are play.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If the word cannot be replaced by two words (your\u00a0\u2192 you are) then it does not need an apostrophe.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You\u2019re always means you are.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And if you are not sure, you can always avoid <em>you\u2019re<\/em> and <em>it\u2019s<\/em> without sounding stilted. You are always able to avoid certain words; it is not that hard to do!<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"textbox interact\" aria-label=\"Interact\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/lumenlearning.h5p.com\/content\/1292085783827580428\/embed\" width=\"1089\" height=\"638\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" aria-label=\"Apostrophe 2\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/section>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"menu_order":12,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[]","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"part":180,"module-header":"learn_it","content_attributions":[],"internal_book_links":[],"video_content":null,"cc_video_embed_content":{"cc_scripts":"","media_targets":[]},"try_it_collection":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.one.lumenlearning.com\/englishcomp1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/802"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.one.lumenlearning.com\/englishcomp1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.one.lumenlearning.com\/englishcomp1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.one.lumenlearning.com\/englishcomp1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/content.one.lumenlearning.com\/englishcomp1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3330,"href":"https:\/\/content.one.lumenlearning.com\/englishcomp1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/802\/revisions\/3330"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.one.lumenlearning.com\/englishcomp1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/180"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.one.lumenlearning.com\/englishcomp1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/802\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.one.lumenlearning.com\/englishcomp1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.one.lumenlearning.com\/englishcomp1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=802"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.one.lumenlearning.com\/englishcomp1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=802"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.one.lumenlearning.com\/englishcomp1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}