It's vs. Its

One of the most common errors found on new wiki articles is a misunderstanding of the usage of the word it's. This guide will help you avoid the error. This is taken into consideration when Staff are Reviewing Submissions.

• “It's” is a contraction of “it is” or “it has.”
  • “It's illegal to smoke on planet Yamatai.”
  • “It's very strange.”
  • “It's a trap!”
• “Its” is the possessive.
  • “The ship fired its weapons”
  • “Its teeth are huge”
  • “…moving under its own power.”

The reasons some people make the “it's/its” error is because 's can be added to most objects to show possession (Example: “Hanako's uniform”); however, its is a pronoun so its has no apostrophe. Other possessive pronouns do not have an apostrophe either:

• Theirs
• Yours
• His
• Hers
• Its

The best way to avoid the error is to learn the rules above. If you're having trouble, try one of the following:

• Substitution Method
• Avoid “It's” Entirely

The substitution method:

• It's: Try swapping “it's” for “it is” and see if your sentence still makes sense. If it does not, then you should use its.
• Its: Try swapping the gender-neutral “its” with “her” (Example: The ship fired her weapons). It should still make sense grammatically.

Avoid using “it's” in wiki articles. There are two good reasons for this:

1. Because “it's” is a contraction, it is informal and not suited to the somewhat encyclopedic tone of our wiki articles.
2. Because “it's” is a contraction, you can use “it is” in its place. If you always use “it is,” you can avoid the error entirely.

Here are some useful links to off-site pages:

• It's vs Its @ e Learn English Language