Please, Students: Learn the Difference Between Its and It's

When I’m reviewing my students’ essay responses, I am sometimes lenient when it comes to errors involving spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and general grammar, especially when the students write their responses under timed, test-like conditions that mimic the bar exam.

When students have only 30 minutes to respond to an essay question that might ask three to four different issues, it’s understandable that their responses won’t reflect a polished, error-free answer.

While I won’t usually deduct points for these writing problems, I will sometimes make a comment in the students’ responses, pointing out the mistake and reminding students of this:

Repetitive misspellings or grammatical problems will likely cause graders to look more closely at your response, as these minor problems are usually indicative of larger, substantive problems in your response, like poor analysis, organization, or—worse—content.

So please, students: Don’t give bar examiners a reason to scrutinize your essay response any more than they need to.

And, please, students: Learn the difference between it’s and its!

The word it’s is always short for “it is” (as in “it’s going to be difficult getting through these essays”), or in informal speech, for “it has” (as in, “it’s been a tremendous effort to get through these essays”).

The word its means “belonging to it” (as in “the bar exam and its essay section are going to be the downfall for some students”). It is a possessive pronoun like his and her.

And the word its’ (as in, I-T-S-apostrophe)? That’s not even a word! No matter how many times its' is used in an essay response, it will not become a word. Ever. I'm less forgiving when students use a nonexistent word.