Choose the correctly hyphenated form.

• A. well-known author.
• B. Well-known author.
• C. well known-author.
• D. well-known- author.

Answer: (A)

Hyphenating a compound modifier before a noun keeps the two words read as one description. Here, well is an adverb modifying the adjective known, and together they form a single descriptor for author. When placed directly before the noun, this compound is written with a hyphen: well-known author. Capitalization isn’t needed here unless the phrase starts a sentence, so lowercase is correct.

The other forms miss the standard rule: starting with a capital Well-known author would be used only at the beginning of a sentence; attaching a hyphen to connect known and author (well known-author) doesn’t reflect a standard compound modifier; and adding a stray space after the hyphen (well-known- author) isn’t correct punctuation.