Question

what is a appositive phrase

Answer 1

An appositive phrase consists of the appositive and its modifiers which may themselves be phrases.

Do you need an example?

Answer 2

yes.

Answer 3

Example:

Earth, the only planet in our galaxy known to support life, is sometimes called the third rock from the sun.

Notice that the appositive phrase, the only planet in our galaxy known to support life, is separated from the sentence by a pair of commas. If the appositive phrase and its commas were taken out of the sentence, it would still make sense even though many interesting details would be lost:

Earth is sometimes called the third rock from the sun.

When an appositive phrase comes at the beginning or end of the sentence, only a single comma separates it from the sentence. The rule about remaining a sentence when the appositive phrase is removed must still be met.\

An other example:

Appositive phrases are also quite useful for combining sentences to avoid the pitfall of too many short, choppy sentences. Sentence variety, using a mixture of different types of sentences of varying lengths, allows the writer to include lots of interesting details while keeping the flow of the writing smooth and easy to read. Consider the difference between the following two writing styles. The first uses several short, simple sentences. The second uses a single complex sentence.

I like to swim. I swim in the summer. Summer is the hot season of the year. I swim at my favorite beach. The beach is called Ocean Beach.

Ocean Beach, my favorite beach, is where I like to swim in the summer, the hot season of the year.

Combining all the simple sentences into one complex sentence allows us to keep the details that we want to include while providing a smoother reading experience for our readers.