Apostrophes Reflection

Every time I would send a document up to my company office to be reviewed and submitted, it would be kicked back. Not because it was the wrong format, the wrong letter head, or not the right information. It was because of my writing abilities. Being in the Marine Corps, I never had the need to use proper writing styles to get the mission accomplished. All I needed to know was how to shoot, treat a wound and lead my fire team. But once I started being promoted the need for myself to start writing and typing grew. So I took this class to gain knowledge about the writing process, and how to better my writing abilities. I also wanted to set the example for my Marines and my kids, to show them that education can and will help make you become a better-rounded person. Throughout this essay I will be addressing: Subject-Verb Agreement, The use of pronouns, and Apostrophes. All of which I have had a terrible time with before this class.

Subject-Verb Agreement, I learned about in week 3 helped me with creating a better

sentience. If you asked me what a subject-verb agreement was before this class I would have just looked at you with a confused face and made up some ridiculous answer. But now I can tell you that, every sentence has a subject that is either singular or plural. If the sentence has a singular subject, it must be paired with a singular verb. If the sentence has a plural subject, it must be paired with a plural verb. When I did this in the ComFit assignments, I was a little confused. I had to reread it a few time before I actually grabbed a hold of the concept. Like I said, I did not join the Marine Corps because I was book smart.

Apostrophes were one of the things I really thought I had a good concept of.

Until this class that is. I would just throw them on all willy nilly, not really caring where I put them. But thankfully week 7 came to my aid when I had to learn all about the exciting world of apostrophes. Apostrophes are used to signify possession. So when I write “kody’s bike” the bike belongs to Kody so I put an apostrophe. But If a word ends with an "s" because it is plural, and it is also being used as a possessive, then we will place the apostrophe after the "s”, as in "my two dogs’ bones." Apostrophes are also used to mark contractions, which are combinations of words that some letters have been taken out. We would then place the apostrophe in the position of the missing letters in the word. For example, "it is" is contracted as "it’s." Contractions took a little while for me to progress through but I can say I am better at them than I was before this

class.

In week 8 when we were learning about the use of pronouns, my wife asked me if I even knew what a pronoun was. I couldn’t help myself and I said, “It’s a noun that was called up to the major league, duh!” How much did I actually forget, or not pay attention to, from high school? I now know that pronouns are a part of speech that can replace a noun. Some popular pronouns are: I, me, he, she, herself, you, it, that, they, each, few, many, who, whoever, whose, someone, and everybody. So when I say, “Billy saw Carol, and he said hi to her.” The pronouns he and her take the place of Billy and Carol. Most of the information I got for pronouns came from reading the webpage that was listed.

Given my limited experience of writing, forming a sentence, and general knowledge of the writing process, I can say that this class has been a great experience for me. No more will I be made fun of for my terrible writing and horrible grammar. Subject-Verb Agreements are going to stick in my mind because of how many times I had to read and reread it. Apostrophes are nothing to play with, but I believe that I’ve mastered them. I have known about pronouns for a while, I just did not know that they were called pronouns. I know I still have a long way to go to be considered a good writer but I actually feel confident in my writing abilities for future classes and assignments. I know I can use everything I have learned here and turn around to help my Marines become better at writing and forming their own sentences. Also I wanted to say thank you very much for taking your time to help me better myself and further my education.