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Punctuation Mississippi

Suggest improvements for the highlighted problem area:

In the debate about the source of the Mississippi, we heard three student's opinions:

Nathan: It isnt any mystery that the source of the Mississippi is the northeast corner of Minnesota. In 1832, Henry Schoolcraft proved that the river began with springs under Lake Itasca.

Hillary: Nathan, your wrong. Actually, the Missouri River is longer than the upper Mississippi and has a larger area from which it collects water. Therefore, the true source of the Mississippi is the Rocky Mountain region of western Montana.

Cecil: Hillary and Nathan's ideas fail to recognize the big picture. The waters of the Mississippi come from rain clouds that float over 22 states and 2 provinces in North America.

Answer:

- Apostrophe for Possession -

The apostrophe is used to indicate possession, a contraction, or a plural. In the first sentence of the opening paragraph we have a need for an apostrophe to show possession:

    In the debate about the source of the Mississippi, we heard three student's opinions:

Because the opinions belong to the students, we need to show the possessive case for the plural noun, students:

    In the debate about the source of the Mississippi, we heard three students' opinions:

The rules for using the possessive apostrophe are shown below for different types of nouns:

  noun plural
ends in -s
noun plural
doesn't end in -s
compound word
plural ends in -s
singular: husband's idea woman's problem mother-in-law's visit
plural: husbands' idea women's problem mother-in-laws' visit

A notable exception to these rules is for the personal pronouns, which refer to specific persons or things:

personal pronoun:    I you he she it we they
possessive form:   mine yours his hers its ours theirs

 

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