English Skills with Readings 7th Edition by John Langan

Exercise 116

Syllabication
The second bit of information that the dictionary gives, also in the boldface entry, is the syllabication of murder. Note that a dot separates the syllables.
Use your dictionary to mark the syllable divisions in the following words. Also indicate how many syllables are in each word.
j i t t e r (_______syllables)
m o t i v a t e (_______syllables)
o r a n g u t a n (_______syllables)
i n c o n t r o v e r t i b l e (______syllables)
Noting syllable divisions will enable you to hyphenate a word: divide it at the end of one line of writing and complete it at the beginning of the next line. You can correctly hyphenate a word only at a syllable division, and you may have to check your dictionary to make sure of the syllable divisions.