Appositives – Category Lessons & Tips

Use this section to learn how to solve questions in this category, including related theorems and problem
variations likely to appear on the exam. Then return to the category page to practice problems and review your results.

LESSONS: 

Appositives are nouns that immediately follow another noun and basically mean the same thing: my sister Linda. Linda and my sister are one and the same.

  1. Appositive questions are basically a subset, or example, of the Restrictive vs. Non-Restrictive comma rule.
    1. The appositive, the second noun, will either be separated on both sides by commas or not separated by commas at all, never commas on one side and not the other.
    2. Identify if the 2nd noun is restrictive (identifying information not separated by commas) or non-restrictive (extra information separated parenthetically).
  2. Quick & Dirty Rule:
    1. Name + Profession ⇒ Use commas. e.g. Shakespeare, the famous playwright , (rest of text)
    2. Profession + Name ⇒ No commas. e.g. the famous playwright Shakespeare (rest of text)

LESSONS: 

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