Appositives: a strategy for defining and describing terms

Appositives are noun phrases (or pronouns) used to elaborate on the meaning of the noun they are modifying.  They allow you to pack information into a sentence and describe and define terms without interrupting the flow of the sentence or forcing you to write another short sentence to do so.  You see appositives used all the time in professional writing, so keep your eyes aware of them when you read and learn how to incorporate them into your writing to add detail.

Punctuating Noun Phrase Appositives

✏       Commas can be placed before and after an appositive when it comes in the middle of a sentence:

John Milton, a poet of great vision, went blind in 1651.

✏       Dashes can also be used to set off an appositive in the middle of a sentence. Note that the use of dashes gives more emphasis to the appositive:

John Milton—a poet of great vision—went blind in 1651.

✏       When an appositive comes at the end of a sentence, put a comma before it and a period after it:

Despite his complete loss of eyesight, he went on to write a poem of epic proportion, Paradise Lost.

✏       Once again, a dash can be used to set off the appositive, and again it gives more emphasis to the appositive:

Despite his complete loss of eyesight, he went on to write a poem of epic proportion—Paradise Lost.

✏       An appositive series in the middle of a sentence is usually set off by dashes because there are already commas in the series:

Some of his greatest poems—Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes—were written near the end of his life.

✏       An appositive series at the end of a sentence is usually set off by a colon:

His life was full of hardship: loss of office, governmental harassment, imprisonment, blindness.

(Note: A colon, punctuation usually used near the end of a sentence, cannot be used to set off an appositive series in the middle of a sentence.)

 Exercise:Identify the appositives in the following example. Underline the appositives with a single line, the noun phrases set off by a comma, dash or colon, and the noun they are modifying with double lines.

Example:

S.I. Hayakawa, a noted Semanticist, points out that advertising and poetry are alike (162).

1)       The Sacramento River, The main source of surface water in a state where distrust of centralized governmental authority has historically passed for an ethic, has its headwaters in the far northern ranges of Siskiyou County.

2)       An expression of frustrated rage, rap music tries to be outrageous in order to provoke strong reactions.

3)     The first scene of the opera Die Walkure, the second of the four operas making up Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle, takes place in the house of Hunding, a fierce warlord.

4)     As Baranczak point out, Milosz-noble prize winning poet-rejects symbols in favor of metonymy and synecdoche, those figures of speech which represent a whole by a thing allied to it or by part of it.

5)     Cotton Mather was an exception, one who so fully accepted and magnified the outlook of his locality that he has entered folklore as the archetypal puritan, not only a villainous figure in the pages of Hawthorne, William Carlos Williams and Robert Lowell, but an object of parody even to his fellow townsmen in 18thCentury Boston.

Exercise:Combine the following sentences into a single sentence using noun phrase appositives. Be sure to write out the entire sentence in the space provided. Refer to the section on punctuating appositives if you are confused.

1)     Deep in the coke trade’s shadow, marijuana has become one of the largest cash crops in the United States.

Marijuana is the dowdy green matron of the drug scene.

Deep in the coke trade’s shadow, marijuana, the dowdy green matron of the drug scene, has become one of the largest cash crops in the United States.

2)     Prosecutors applied tough felony laws to these (pregnant) women.

The laws were designed for drug dealers, not drug users.

Prosecutors applied tough felony laws, designed for drug dealers, not drug users, to these (pregnant) women.

3)     Serotonin acts as a chemical messenger between neurons.

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter.

Neurons are the nerve cells of the brain.

Serotonin, a neurotransmitter, acts as a chemical messenger between neurons, the nerve cells of the brain. 

4)     Malawi’s cash crops were unchanged, though their value on the world market continued to fluctuate.

The cash crops are peanuts, tea, coffee, sugarcane, and tobacco.

Malawi’s cash crops- peanuts, tea, coffee, sugarcane, and tobacco, were unchanged, though their value on the world market continued to fluctuate.

5)     Trainspotting is the most hyped film of the summer.

Trainspotting is a techno-color trip through Scotland’s junkie underbelly.

Trainspotting, a techno-color trip through Scotland’s junkie underbelly, is the most hyped film of the summer.

6)     Dr. Laurie Gage has spent hours in the tank helping feed and medicate the beaked whales.

Dr. Laurie Gage is one of the few women who are exotic animal vets.

Dr. Laurie Gage, one of the few women who are exotic animal vets, has spent hours in the tank helping feed and medicate the beaked whales.

7)     Now clean for four-and-a-half years, Dave Navarro had used heroin while a member of Jane’s Addiction.

Dave Navarro is the guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Jane’s Addiction is an influential first-wave alternative band.

Now clean for four-and-a-half years, Dave Navarro- the guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers- had used heroin while a member of the influential first-wave alternative band-Jane’s Addiction.

Congratulations, you have just recreated sentences originally written by professional writers!