Grammar 101: It's and Its
Published on June 6, 2022
Published on Wealthy Affiliate — a platform for building real online businesses with modern training and AI.
Grammar 101: It's and Its
There's no doubt that, in its entirety, English grammar is complex, especially for someone learning English as a second language.
But...
If you're a native English speaker and just want to avoid common grammatical errors in your writing (such as blog posts on your website) there are only a handful of rules that you need to memorize.
So this series of posts is for those who'd like to ditch the Grammarly crutch and just know what's right and what's not.
Here's the first one:
Ready to put this into action?
Start your free journey today — no credit card required.
It's and Its
This one is dead easy and yet so many people get it wrong.
It's (with the apostrophe) is ALWAYS an abbreviation for "it is". So all you have to do is substitute "it is" for "it's" in your writing. Does it still make sense?
For example, "It's going to rain today" is an abbreviation for "It is going to rain today" so that's correct usage.
But "In it's entirety, English grammar is complex" expands to "In it is entirety, English grammar is complex" which doesn't make sense and so is incorrect usage.
Never mind that you add an apostrophe s to other words to create a possessive. "Its" is the exception.
So that's your simple rule. Substitute "it is" for "it's" and ask yourself if it still makes sense. After a while, it'll become automatic. You won't have to think it through any more.
Next Post in This Series
Your and You're.
Share this insight
This conversation is happening inside the community.
Join free to continue it.The Internet Changed. Now It Is Time to Build Differently.
If this article resonated, the next step is learning how to apply it. Inside Wealthy Affiliate, we break this down into practical steps you can use to build a real online business.
No credit card. Instant access.