Appositives

Appositives are words or phrases that give additional information about a subject, object or predicate nominative.  The sentence "Your teacher, the great one, will now start class" has an appositive phrase, "the great one," that interrupts the flow of the sentence to give information about the subject, "teacher."  Sometimes, the information is not necessary to understand the meaning of the sentence, as in this example.  Other times, the information is very necessary to understand the meaning of the sentence, as in "Your teacher who is sick has cancelled class."  Without the 'who is sick' modifying 'teacher,' the meaning of the sentence would be unclear and any of your teachers could have cancelled class instead of just the one to whom the sentence applies.

Type your name in here
Type your email address in here

1) Debbie Carleton, a dental hygienist, taught me to floss correctly.             

                                                                                                          \
                                                                                                           \             
                                                                                                                       |        \                                                                                                                              |
                                                                                                                         |
   ()      |        |           / \    
                               \   \                 \
                                                                              
                                                                                
                                                                          
                                                                            
                                                                                                                                                       
2) Gingivitis, a common periodontal disease, inflames the gum tissue.
                                                                      
  ()    |      |  
                                \ \    \                          \   \
                                              \

3) Gums can be irritated by plaque, a sticky form of bacteria.
                                                                    
   |   
                                \        
                                   \               ()  
                                                                           \   \    \     
                                                                                                            \                                    
                                                                           
                                            
4) Bacterial plaque hardens into calculus, another gum irritant.

   |   
      \           \   
                                                   \               ()   
                                                                                             \    \                                                                                                                  
5) Dr. Cohen performed a curettage, a surgical removal of plaque, calculus, and inflamed tissue.

                                                                                             
   |       |       ()___
                                                              \                   \ \  \ 
                                                                                                                             \              
                                                                                                                              |         
                                                                                                                              |          and
                                                                                                                              |         
                                                                                                                                             \