Mr. Surridge’s Grammar and Punctuation Expectations

There will be a test on Monday over this material. Homework for Monday is to study

and prepare for an medium-length exam will feature a variety of types of questions.

Mr. Surridge’s Grammar and Punctuation Expectations

You will be held accountable to these grammar standards for the rest of the school year and will lose points when you make mistakes on

your work that relates to these items.

COLONS are primarily used for two things : making lists and revealing an answer.

• Do not place a colon after verbs such as the following: be, are, is, are, was, have, had, etc.

• Colons typically follow a certain part of speech: nouns

• Example Sentence #1: I grew up before most modern technologies: cars, airplanes, telephones, computers, and even Snapchat.

• Example Sentence#2: He knew of only one girl he wanted to date: Cleo.

• Example Sentence #3: The Old Testament contains one giant: Goliath.

1.

BASIC APPOSITIVES, which fall between a pair of commas, are useful tools when writing.

• The appositive, which demonstrates particular skill in a student’s writing, adds extra descriptive information to a sentence.

• If you remove the appositive, perhaps to return to a simpler statement, you are still left with a complete sentence.

• Example Sentence #1: The cyborg chopped down the tree, which was in danger of falling onto his house, by using his chainsaw arms.

• Example Sentence#2: The rabbit, which had been stuffed into the magician’s hat for hours, was pulled out and presented to the spoiled children.

2.

ADVANCED APPOSITIVES—ones that use dashes, which are a little trickier—must be learned.

• The advanced appositive—which many students avoid, something that quite saddens me—can make your sentence a little more spicy.

• It features a pair of dashes—inside which are at least two statements, which are separated by a comma—allowing a writer to avoid run-on sentences.

• Example Sentence #1: Beyonce Knowles—wife of Jay-Z, mother of Blue Ivy, and R&B diva extraordinaire—is one of Mr. Surridge’s favorite artists.

• Example Sentence#2: He blew up the fort—a large brick structure, complete with cannons and turrets, which hadn’t fired for centuries—and the whole town awoke.

3.

IT’S vs. ITS /APOSTROPHES are never plural.

• It’s = It is.

• Its = belonging to it.

• Apostrophe’s, dog’s, cat’s, basketball’s

• Example Sentence #1: He knew not to place apostrophes in a plural word; it’s not really that hard to remember.

• When her homework was returned to her, she saw the red marks in its margins. She had incorrectly used apostrophes.

4.