Apostrophes (')and quotation marks (", ")are two different punctuation marks that serve different purposes in writing. An apostrophe is a punctuation mark indicating possession or that one or more letters have been omitted in a contraction. For example, "John's car" uses an apostrophe to show that the car belongs to John, while "can't" uses an apostrophe to indicate that the letters "n" and "o" have been omitted from "cannot". Quotation marks enclose direct speech, dialogue, or a direct quotation. For example, "She said, 'I'm tired'" uses quotation marks to indicate that the words "I'm tired" are the exact words the person spoke.