Apostrophe in “beginners guide”

Question

In the phrase beginners guide to …, where should the apostrophe go?

1. Beginner’s Guide to […]
2. Beginners’ Guide to […]

In my particular case, this is the title for a presentation so there are multiple beginners that are being addressed.

Answer 1

If your intention is to address each member of the audience directly, I suggest you prefix the phrase with an appropriate article, as in:

A Beginner's Guide to Shoe Hurling

or

The Beginner's Guide to Shoe Hurling

The use of the apostrophe before s seems more apt in this context.

Although:

Beginners' Guide to Shoe Hurling

is also grammatically correct, but would make your presentation sound impersonal.

Answer 2

You can argue cogently for either position:

• Beginner's Guide - this is a guide for one beginner at a time (and is probably the best choice)

• Beginners' Guide - this is a guide for all beginners at the same time.

However, normally one person is reading (one copy of) a text at a time, and therefore "Beginner's" is the more normal. It is more likely that you will be perceived as not knowing how to handle apostrophes if you use "Beginners'".

Answer 3

Either is correct and you'd have to choose based on context: "A beginner's guide to peg solitaire" vs "Beginners' guide to flash-mob culture".