Apostrophe in “beginners guide”
In the phrase beginners guide to …, where should the apostrophe go?
- Beginner’s Guide to […]
- Beginners’ Guide to […]
In my particular case, this is the title for a presentation so there are multiple beginners that are being addressed.
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.
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'".