Appositives

Improving Sentence Variety While Avoiding Fragments

Directions: Block the first sentence in each problem, and paste it into the answer window. Then add the information from the second sentence in each pair to the first sentence, after the subject, and use commas to set off the inserted information. When you click "check," feedback will appear in a pop-up window, and your cumulative score will appear here.

What Appositives Are

Please read the following lesson before attempting the exercise.

LESSON: An appositive is a word or phrase that renames a noun or pronoun:

     Harvey Maddox, THAT DIRTY BUM, owes me $5.00.
     Once I had a ruby ring, A DEEP RED RUBY SET IN GOLD.

It's called an appositive because it's positioned next to (ad + positio in Latin) what it renames. Sometimes appositives can become very long, but they should never be punctuated as if they were sentences. This exercise will give you practice in recognizing this structure and distinguishing appositives from sentences. Appositives, like relative clauses, are set off from the rest of the sentence by commas UNLESS they are needed identify what they rename.

To enter a response, click in the answer window, type the response, and click "Check."