Apostrophe: It's all in its use

Whether or not a person follows rules of English within his or her writing can also be provide an unexpected signal about intelligence. For better or worse, proper spelling, punctuation, word choice, noun-verb agreement all seem to separate people in a kind of social category.

The reality is that you can make yourself look less intelligent in print then you really are by violating standard rules of communication. Now whether the correct use of an apostrophe is the academic equivalent of a belch (or worse!) is open to debate. But I can share with you that improper punctuation gets in the way of your message. Somehow, the misuse of an apostrophe destroys everything else that might have been admirable about a piece of writing.

Admittedly, the punctuation police can get out of hand. But underneath their fanaticism are some good guidelines. So I want to point you to the Apostrophe Protection Society and encourage to you to be vigilant about using “its” when you are indicating possession and “it’s” only as a contraction for “it is” in your writing.