Apostrophes
Apostrophes (’) are used for three reasons: possession (boy’s bike), contraction (don’t) or omission (Rock ’n’ Roll). Today I’ll cover possession.
If the owner is singular, add the apostrophe before the s. The boy’s book.
If the owner is plural, add the apostrophe after the s. The girls’ sleepover.
If the owner is plural without an s, add ’s. The women’s room.
It the owner is it, do not add an apostrophe. The court said its decision was fair.
Do not add an apostrophe on plural words that are not possessive. The dogs barked.
Quotation marks
There are two basic rules:
Commas and periods always go inside the quotation marks.
Question marks and exclamation points go in or out, depending on whether they are part of the material being quoted.
There is much more to this topic and for that I refer you to
English Grammar for Dummies. I need to review that chapter myself before I do any serious quoting.
One space between sentences.
On a typewriter you might have been taught to place two spaces after a sentence. That does not apply to typing on a computer. Since computers use proportional fonts, where the space taken by each character varies, two spaces can leave a disturbing gap. This also applies to all other punctuation marks.