Your vs You’re, Their vs They’re, There, Its vs It’s: Which One Is Correct?

You reread the email one more time before hitting send. Client's name, spelled right. Attachment, there. Tone, professional. Send.

Ten seconds later you see it. "Thanks for you're time." Not your, you're. And now it's sitting in someone's inbox with your name on it.

You know the rule. You have known it since primary school. You just typed the wrong one anyway, because you were moving fast and your brain auto-completes the sound, not the spelling.

This is not a knowledge problem. It is a speed problem. Every writer, published author, uni student, and marketing manager makes this exact mistake under deadline pressure, and spellcheck will not save you, because your and you're are both real words. So is their, there and they're. So are its and it's. Your software has no idea which one you meant.

The good news is that all three confusions collapse into one test. Expand the apostrophe word back into its full two-word form and see if the sentence still makes sense. If it does, keep the apostrophe. If it does not, drop it. That is the whole system, and once it clicks, it stays clicked.

This guide walks through your vs you're, their vs there vs they're, and its vs it's in full, then goes further into the pair that trips up even careful writers: yours vs your's (spoiler, only one of those is a word). You will get a quick-reference table, a mnemonic for each pair, real mistakes pulled from emails and manuscripts, a short quiz with answers, and a self-check routine you can run before you send anything important.

None of this is about intelligence, and it is worth saying that plainly before we go further. Plenty of published authors, editors, and university lecturers type "your welcome" without noticing, because typing happens faster than proofreading, and the part of your brain producing words is not the same part checking them afterwards. The fix is not to slow down your whole writing process. It is to build one specific, targeted habit for these nine words and run it before anything important goes out the door.

Quick-Reference Table: Every Pair At A Glance

Bookmark this table. When you are in a hurry and just need the answer, start here.

Notice the pattern already forming. Every word in the left column that takes an apostrophe is a contraction, two words squeezed into one. Every word without an apostrophe is a possessive, and possessives showing ownership before a noun, or standing alone at the end of a sentence, never take an apostrophe. Keep that single idea in your head, and you are most of the way to fixing all of these for good.

One more note before we move on. There is a second job that trips people up. It also works as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun when you do not know or do not want to specify someone's gender, as in "every author should proofread their own draft before sending it to an editor." That usage is completely standard in modern writing, so do not let anyone tell you otherwise.

Your vs You're: The Rule In One Sentence

Your shows ownership. It sits in front of a noun, always. Your book, your deadline, your cover proof, your royalty statement.

You're is short for you are. The apostrophe stands in for the missing letters, nothing more.

Put them side by side. "Your draft needs one more pass" and "you're going to want a second opinion on that ending" use two different words doing two different jobs, but because they sound identical when spoken, your ear cannot help you the way it can with most other mistakes. You have to check on the page.

How To Choose In Under Ten Seconds

Here is the test, broken into steps you can run in your head without slowing down your typing speed for long.

1. Read the sentence back silently.

2. Wherever the word sits, swap it out for "you are."

3. Does the sentence still make sense? If yes, you're is correct. If it sounds broken, your is correct.

Try it on two real examples. "I like you're shirt" becomes "I like you are shirt" when you run the test, which is obviously wrong, so the sentence needs your. "Your going to love this" becomes "you are going to love this," which reads perfectly fine, so the sentence needs you're.

Common Mistakes And How To Fix Them

These show up constantly in queries, cover letters, and social captions, usually because the writer typed fast and never went back to check.

Incorrect: "Your welcome to join us for the launch." Correct: "You're welcome to join us for the launch."

Incorrect: "I borrowed you're pen during the workshop." Correct: "I borrowed your pen during the workshop."

Incorrect: "Hope you're manuscript is coming along well." Correct: "Hope your manuscript is coming along well."

The pattern behind every one of these errors is the same. The writer heard the sound "yor" in their head and typed whichever spelling felt closest at the time, without pausing to ask which job the word was doing in that particular sentence.

Expert tip: The apostrophe in you're is standing in for a missing letter, the a in are. If you can picture that little gap where the a used to be, you will remember why the apostrophe belongs there and nowhere near a plain possessive like your.

What Your Is Actually Doing In A Sentence

Grammatically, your is what is known as a possessive determiner, the same family as my, his, her, our, and their. Its only job is to sit in front of a noun and show who that noun belongs to. It cannot stand alone the way yours can. You would never write "this book is your," because your always needs a noun attached to it, whether that noun is written explicitly or strongly implied by context. "Is this your copy?" works because copy follows your directly. "Is this yours?" works instead because yours has absorbed the noun into itself and no longer needs one attached.

That distinction matters more than it looks like it should, because it is the same distinction that separates every possessive determiner in English from its matching possessive pronoun, and once you see it clearly here, it becomes much easier to apply to their versus theirs and its versus, well, its, later in this guide.

Their vs There vs They're: Three Jobs, One Sound

This is the trio that causes the most damage, because there are three options instead of two, and each one does something completely different.

Their shows ownership. It answers the question "whose." Their contract, their deadline, their final draft.

There points to a place, or it signals that something exists. "The boxes are over there" is a place. "There are two more chapters to write" is existence, not location, and that second use catches a lot of writers off guard because it does not feel like a place word at all.

They're is short for they are, exactly the same pattern as you're.

Put all three in one sentence, and the contrast becomes obvious: "They're finalising their contract before the meeting starts, and once it's signed we will leave it there for the lawyers to review."

The Two-Question Test For This Trio

Run the substitution test first, because it settles one of the three options immediately.

Question one: can you replace the word with "they are" and have the sentence still make sense? If yes, the answer is they're, and you are done.

If the substitution fails, move to question two: does the word show ownership, does it answer "whose"? If yes, the answer is their. If the sentence is instead pointing at a place or stating that something exists, the answer is there.

Walk through three examples using this exact process. "Their going to the store" tests as "they are going to the store," which works, so the correct word is they're. "I left my notes over their" fails the they're test and is not showing ownership either, since it is pointing at a location, so the correct word is there. "There house backs onto the reserve" fails the they're test but is clearly showing ownership of the house, so the correct word is their.

Spot Them By The Words Hiding Inside Them

Two small visual tricks make this trio easier to recall under pressure.

There contains the word here inside it. Both words point to location or existence, so let that embedded word remind you of the connection.

Their contains the word heir inside it. An heir inherits property, money, or a title, so that word is doing an ownership job, exactly like their.

Once you notice these two hidden words, you stop needing to think through the whole test every time. Your eye catches the shape of the word, and the meaning follows.

Singular They: Using Their Without A Specific Person In Mind

Modern usage fully accepts their as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun, and it has been used for a long time in everyday speech, only becoming standard in formal writing more recently. Use it whenever you are referring to a person whose gender you do not know or do not want to specify.

"Every reader will form their own opinion of the ending" is correct, natural, and avoids the clunky alternative of writing "his or her" every time. "The editor asked each contributor to submit their chapter by Friday" works the same way.

Some older style guides once discouraged this usage in formal contexts, insisting on he as a default or the awkward he or she construction throughout a whole document. Current guidance, including from major national language authorities, accepts singular they as correct and preferred in most writing, including professional and academic work. If a strict house style still requires the older form, that is a style choice, not a grammar rule you are breaking by using their.

Common Mistakes In Context

Incorrect: "Their going to be late for the print run." Correct: "They're going to be late for the print run."

Incorrect: "The proofs are over their on the desk." Correct: "The proofs are over there on the desk."

Incorrect: "There feedback was really helpful." Correct: "Their feedback was really helpful."

Expert tip: If you only remember one thing from this section, remember the two hidden words. Here inside there, heir inside their. That alone resolves two-thirds of the confusion without needing the full test.

One more real-world example worth sitting with, because it packs all three words into a single natural sentence the way you would actually encounter them in a work email: "There are two authors on this contract, and their agent confirmed they're happy to sign once the royalty split is finalised." Notice how there opens the sentence pointing to existence, their sits directly in front of agent showing ownership, and they're sits in front of happy, expandable back to "they are happy." Reading a sentence like this slowly, once, is often enough to make the pattern click in a way that isolated single-word examples do not.

Its vs It's: The Apostrophe Exception Everyone Trips On

This is the pair that catches even experienced writers, editors, and professionals, because it looks like it should follow the normal possessive pattern and it does not.

The Rule: Possessive Pronouns Never Take An Apostrophe

Its is the possessive form of it, in exactly the same family as his, hers, yours, ours, and theirs. None of those words take an apostrophe, ever, and it follows the same rule.

Here is the myth worth busting properly. An apostrophe does not always mean possession. In a contraction, it marks missing letters. In a possessive pronoun, it does not appear at all. Its, yours, hers, ours and theirs are the exceptions that prove this, and once you see them as a family rather than as individual rules to memorise, the whole thing gets easier.

It's As A Contraction Of It Is Or It Has

It's only ever means one of two things: it is, or it has. Nothing else.

"It's a strong first draft" means "it is a strong first draft." "It's been three weeks since the last edit" means "it has been three weeks since the last edit." Notice that second example carefully, because a lot of writers only remember the "it is" meaning and get confused when it's shows up in a sentence about something that has happened, rather than something that currently is.

The Substitution Test For Its And It's

Replace the word with "it is" or "it has." If the sentence still makes sense, use it's. If not, use its.

"The dog wagged it's tail" tests as "the dog wagged it is tail," which is obviously broken, so the correct word is its. "Its a beautiful cover design" tests as "it is a beautiful cover design," which reads perfectly, so the correct word is it's.

Common Errors And Fixes

Incorrect: "The publisher lost it's biggest distributor last year." Correct: "The publisher lost its biggest distributor last year."

Incorrect: "Its time to send the manuscript to the editor." Correct: "It's time to send the manuscript to the editor."

Incorrect: "The company changed it's submission process." Correct: "The company changed its submission process."

Every one of these happens for the same reason. The writer sees a possessive relationship, ownership of a tail, a distributor, a process, and their hand reaches for an apostrophe out of habit, because that is what apostrophes usually signal. It breaks that habit on purpose.

Expert tip: Picture the apostrophe in its as a tiny stand-in for the missing i and s from "is," or the missing ha from "has." If there is nothing missing, there is nothing to mark, and the word stays its.

It helps to compare it directly against a possessive noun, because the two look similar and get confused with each other constantly. "The company's policy changed" uses an apostrophe because company is a regular noun, and regular nouns take apostrophe-s to show possession. "Its policy changed" has no apostrophe because its is already a complete possessive pronoun on its own, standing in the same family as his, hers, yours, ours, and theirs. Same underlying meaning, two completely different grammatical tools, and only one of them uses a mark you can see.

Yours vs Your's: Why Only One Of These Is Ever Correct

Here is a question that comes up constantly: is it yours or your's? The honest answer is that your's is never correct. It does not exist as a word in standard English, in any context, no matter how natural it might look on the page.

Yours is a possessive pronoun. It stands in for "your" plus whatever noun it is replacing, and it sits on its own, usually at the end of a sentence or as the subject. "This desk is yours." "Yours is the manuscript on top of the pile." "I'll take mine; you take yours."

The confusion happens because so many possessives in English do take an apostrophe before an s, like the author's contract, the publisher's deadline, or Maria's cover design. Your brain generalises that pattern and assumes yours must follow it too. It does not, and neither do hers, ours, its or theirs. These five words form a closed set of possessive pronouns that are already complete on their own, no apostrophe needed, ever.

So when someone asks how to spell yours, the answer is simply y-o-u-r-s, five letters, no punctuation. There is no version of this word with an apostrophe in standard usage. If you see your's in a piece of writing, whether your own or someone else's, treat it as a flat error and correct it to yours, full stop.

The same logic applies to theirs. Their's is not a word either. The correct form is always theirs, no apostrophe, functioning exactly like yours. "The final decision is theirs to make" is correct. "The final decision is their's to make" is not, no matter how often you might see it typed that way online.

A sentence like "the choice is yours" or "the credit is theirs" is a useful test case, because both words are doing the exact same job, standing in for a possessive noun phrase without needing anything attached before the s.

The Full Possessive Pronoun Family

Yours does not exist in isolation. It belongs to a small, closed set of words that all behave the same way: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours and theirs. Every one of these stands in for "my/your/his/her/its/our/their plus a noun" and every single one of them skips the apostrophe entirely, no exceptions.

"That manuscript is mine" needs no apostrophe. "This desk used to be ours" needs no apostrophe, and you will sometimes see people mistakenly write "our's," which follows the exact same broken logic as your's and their's and is wrong for the exact same reason. "The final decision is his" needs no apostrophe, and neither does hers. Learn this list as one group rather than as seven separate rules, and the apostrophe question stops coming up at all, because the answer is always the same: never.

It helps to say the whole set out loud once, back to back: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs. None of them take an apostrophe. If a word from this list ever looks like it wants one, the apostrophe is wrong, full stop, no exceptions worth making.

A Few More Ways You Might Ask This Question

People search for this rule in a lot of different phrasings, so it is worth answering a few of them directly here. If you are wondering how to spell your, the answer depends entirely on which job the word is doing: your has no apostrophe when it sits before a noun showing ownership, and you're has one when it stands in for "you are." There is no single universal spelling of "your," only the correct choice for the sentence in front of you.

If you want a sentence with yours to anchor the spelling in your memory, try this one: "I already finished my chapter; now it's time to finish yours." Notice yours sits at the very end, standing completely alone, doing the job of "your chapter" without needing the word chapter attached to it.

And if you are looking for a plain definition of yours, here it is in one line: yours means belonging to you, used without a following noun, and it never takes an apostrophe under any circumstances.

Where This Gets Genuinely Confusing: S Versus S'

A related but separate question worth settling here is when to use an apostrophe with an s at all, since this is where a lot of the your's and their's confusion actually starts.

For a singular noun, you add apostrophe-s to show possession. The author's draft. The editor's notes. The book's cover.

For a plural noun that already ends in s, you add only an apostrophe after the s, with nothing extra. The authors' royalties, meaning royalties belonging to more than one author. The publishers' guidelines, meaning guidelines shared across more than one publisher.

For a plural noun that does not end in s, like children or people, you go back to apostrophe-s, the same as a singular noun. The children's books. The people's choice.

This is a genuinely different rule from the your/yours and their/theirs pattern, and mixing the two up is common. Possessive pronouns like yours, theirs, hers, ours, and its never take an apostrophe under any circumstances. Possessive nouns, meaning actual names or common nouns showing ownership, do take an apostrophe, either before the s for a singular noun or after the s for a plural noun already ending in s. Keep those two systems separate in your head, and both stop being confusing.

Expert tip: If the word could be replaced by a name or a thing plus 's, like "the author's book," you are dealing with a possessive noun and the apostrophe rules above apply. If the word is standing in for a whole possessive phrase on its own, like yours, theirs, hers, or its, no apostrophe ever belongs there.

The Ten-Second Substitution Test: One Rule For Everything

By now you have seen the same underlying test applied three separate times, to your/you're, their/they're and its/it's. Here it is laid out as a single, repeatable method you can run on any of these words without needing to remember three different sets of instructions.

Every genuine contraction can be expanded back into its full two-word form. If the expansion still makes sense in the sentence, the apostrophe word is correct. If the expansion breaks the sentence, drop the apostrophe and use the possessive instead.

Your or you're: Swap in "you are." Works, use you're. Fails, use your.

Their, there or they're: Swap in "they are" first. Works, use they're. Fails, ask whether the word shows ownership. Yes, use their. No, use there.

Its or it's: Swap in "it is" or "it has." Works, use it's. Fails, use its.

Yours or your's, theirs or their's: There is no test needed here, because only one spelling exists. Yours and theirs, no apostrophe, always.

This works every time because contractions and possessives behave in fundamentally different ways. A contraction is always hiding missing letters that you can put back. A possessive is not hiding anything; it is simply showing ownership directly, so there is nothing to expand.

Think of it as a small decision tree you can run silently while proofreading. Can I replace this word with its full two-word version and still get a sentence that makes sense? If yes, keep the apostrophe. If no, the apostrophe does not belong, whether that means switching to your, their, there, or its.

Common Mistakes In Emails, Social Posts And Manuscripts

These errors show up in different places for different reasons, and knowing the context helps you know where to look hardest.

Professional Emails And Cover Letters

"Thank you for you're time" should read "thank you for your time." This is the single most common professional email mistake in this category, and it lands badly because a cover letter or a pitch to an agent is exactly the kind of writing where a small slip reads as carelessness rather than a rushed typo.

"I look forward to hearing you're thoughts" should read "I look forward to hearing your thoughts." Same error, same fix, different sentence.

Social Media And Quick Posts

"Their going to love this cover reveal!" should read "They're going to love this cover reveal!" Social posts get typed fast, often on a phone, which is exactly the environment where autocomplete and speed combine to slip the wrong word through.

"Congrats, so happy for you're success" should read "Congrats, so happy for your success." Even a short, friendly comment benefits from a second glance before posting.

Manuscripts And Academic Writing

"The study showed it's limitations clearly" should read "The study showed its limitations clearly." In academic and manuscript writing specifically, this kind of error can read as a lack of rigour, even when the actual argument or research is strong, simply because readers associate careful thinking with careful sentences.

"The novel loses it's momentum in the third act" should read "the novel loses its momentum in the third act," a note you will see often in manuscript feedback and one worth fixing before you send a draft out for review.

Why Spellcheck Cannot Catch Any Of This

Every single example above is spelled correctly. Your and you're are both real, valid words. So are their, there, and they're. So are its and it's. Spellcheck flags words that do not exist, not words that exist but are wrong for the sentence they are sitting in. That is precisely why these mistakes slip through even in documents that have been run through a grammar tool, and precisely why proofreading these specific pairs by hand, on purpose, matters.

A Self-Check Routine Worth Running Before You Hit Send

Use your document's find function to search for every instance of your, you're, their, there, they're, its, it's, yours, and theirs in a piece of writing before you send it. That takes thirty seconds and catches almost everything.

Apply the substitution test to each instance individually rather than trusting your first read. Your eye tends to see what it expects to see, especially in your own writing, which is exactly why a dedicated word-by-word check catches things a normal read-through misses.

Read the piece aloud, particularly the sentences that felt slightly off on the page. Because these words sound identical, reading aloud will not always catch the error, but it does slow you down enough to notice sentences that feel awkward for other reasons too.

Expert tip: Keep a short personal list of the specific mistakes you make most often, because most writers have a pattern, usually one or two pairs that trip them up far more than the others. Check for those words first, every time, before you check anything else.

It is also worth building this check into whatever writing routine you already have, rather than treating it as an extra step you have to remember separately. If you edit in passes, dedicate one short, final pass entirely to these nine words and nothing else. Do not mix it with checking for plot holes, tightening sentences, or fixing formatting. A single-purpose pass, even a short one, catches far more than trying to spot everything at once, because your attention is not being pulled in six directions at the same time.

Test Yourself: A Short Practice Quiz

Fill in each blank with the correct word, then check your answers below.

1. ___ going to love this new manuscript.

2. I left my notes over ___.

3. The team celebrated ___ book deal.

4. ___ cover design is the one with the gold lettering.

5. ___ welcome to send through your draft anytime.

6. ___ are three chapters left to edit.

7. The publisher updated ___ submission guidelines.

8. ___ been a long week of edits.

9. ___ going to miss the print deadline if they do not send the file today.

10. Is this proof copy ___?

11. The final say on the title is ___ to make.

12. How do you spell ___, as in "this book is ___"?

Answer Key

1. They're (they are going to love this)

2. there (a place)

3. their (ownership, shows whose book deal)

4. Their (ownership)

5. You're (you are welcome)

6. There (existence)

7. its (possession, no apostrophe, belongs to the publisher)

8. It's (it has been)

9. They're (they are going)

10. yours (possessive pronoun, no apostrophe)

11. theirs (possessive pronoun, no apostrophe)

12. yours, y-o-u-r-s, no apostrophe

If you got all twelve right, you have genuinely internalised the test, not just memorised individual sentences. If a couple caught you out, go back to that specific section and run through the examples again. Most writers only ever struggle with one or two of these pairs, not all of them.

Punctuation Habits Worth Building Alongside This One

Homophone confusion is rarely the only punctuation habit worth tightening up once you start paying closer attention to your own writing. If dashes are another area where you second-guess yourself, particularly when deciding between a hyphen, an en dash and an em dash, our guide on em dash versus en dash versus hyphen breaks down exactly when each one belongs, which is a natural next stop once your, their and its stop causing trouble.

Small, consistent habits like these are what separate writing that reads as polished from writing that reads as rushed, even when the actual ideas underneath are equally strong in both cases.

What Comes Next For Your Manuscript

Getting your, their, and its right is one small but real part of a much bigger picture, which is presenting your work at a professional standard from the first page to the last. If you are working on stronger writing techniques alongside grammar, you can also explore the rule of three in writing to make ideas and sentences more engaging and memorable. If you are working toward publication, there are a few places where ANZ Publishing House can help beyond a grammar check.

A dedicated pass from one of our book editors in Queensland catches far more than homophone slips, including structural issues, pacing problems and inconsistencies that are hard to see in your own manuscript after months of staring at it. Once the structural work is done, a final book proofreading pass is where errors like your versus you're and its versus it's get caught for good, line by line, before the manuscript goes any further.

If the idea is there but the time or confidence to write the full manuscript is not, our book ghostwriting service turns your concept into a finished draft in your voice, and for novelists specifically, our fiction book ghostwriter team works closely with you on character, plot and pacing rather than just filling pages. More broadly, our wider team of book ghostwriters covers everything from memoir to business books, matched to the kind of project you are working on.

Once the manuscript itself is finished and polished, presentation takes over. A strong book cover designer gives readers a reason to pick your book up in the first place, and careful book formatting makes sure the interior looks as professional as the cover, whether the book is heading to print or to digital shelves. When it is time to bring physical copies into the world, our book printing service handles that final step.

Getting the book noticed is its own separate challenge. Our book marketing team builds a launch plan around your specific book and audience, a book trailer gives readers something shareable ahead of release day, and an author website built around your brand gives readers, media and industry contacts one clear place to find you and your work.

None of that starts with grammar, but all of it depends on the same underlying habit this guide is really about: treating the small details of your writing as seriously as the big ideas behind it.

The Short Version

Your shows ownership; you're means you are. Their shows ownership; there means a place or existence; they're means they are. Its shows ownership; it's means it is or it has. Yours and theirs stand alone, complete, no apostrophe, ever, and your's and their's are not words in any context.

Run the substitution test whenever you are unsure. Expand the apostrophe word back to its full form, check if the sentence still holds up, and let that answer tell you which spelling belongs. It takes ten seconds, it works on every pair in this guide, and once it becomes second nature, you will stop needing to think about it at all.