Can I Use Contractions in My College Essay

Lesson i: Contractions

What are contractions?

A contraction is a word made by shortening and combining two words. Words like tin can't (can + not), don't (do + not), and I've (I + have) are all contractions.

People employ contractions in both speaking and writing. They're so common that movies and books oft try to make characters seem old-fashioned or strange by having them never utilise contractions. This is a niggling silly because English language speakers have been using contractions for centuries—although not always the same ones we use today.

Writing contractions

All contractions include a punctuation mark that looks like this:

This is an apostrophe. Knowing where to put the apostrophe tin can seem tricky, only there's a pretty simple rule that works with every wrinkle. Remember how nosotros said contractions are fabricated of two words that take been shortened? The apostrophe replaces whatever messages that are in the original words, simply that aren't in the wrinkle.

For example, the contraction couldn't means could not. Every bit you can encounter, the o in not isn't in the word couldn't. The apostrophe goes in its place, right between the northward and t.

Let's wait at another case. You'll means you volition . This contraction is missing 2 messages from the word will : west and i. The apostrophe goes where these missing letters belong: between the u and the first l.

In some parts of the The states, yous can address a group of people by using a special contraction for you lot + all. It's written below—without the apostrophe. Click the spot where the apostrophe should exist.

Nope!

Putting the apostrophe hither just doesn't work. The apostrophe always takes the place of missing messages in a contraction. At that place aren't any missing letters in the discussion all.

Not quite!

Think, this contraction ways y'all + all, or youall. Which letters are missing? The apostrophe should go in the infinite where the missing letters belong.

That's right!

You lot is a contraction of yous all . The missing messages are ou , then the apostrophe goes in their place — correct after the y .

Mutual contractions

In English, there are a adequately pocket-sized number of contractions, and they're all fabricated out of common words. Hither are some of the contractions you'll see the most:

Y'all might have noticed that the word won't is a picayune different from the other contractions. Information technology means will not, fifty-fifty though the word will isn't there. This is because won't is based on a much older form of the word will. Even though the word changed, the wrinkle stayed the same!

Writing with contractions

If anyone tells you lot that you should never use contractions in writing, they're incorrect. Information technology's perfectly OK to use contractions in most writing, including newspapers, fiction, and instructions. In fact, using contractions can make your writing simpler and easier to read.

Even so, if you're writing an academic paper or anything else that'southward formal, yous may want to avoid contractions. If you're writing for school, information technology might exist a good idea to ask your teacher if contractions are OK.

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Source: https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/grammar/contractions/1/

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