Do you ever look at a text and wonder why it just doesn't make sense? Here are four sets of words that are commonly mixed up in English, and one other common grammar error to avoid.
"Your" is a possessive pronoun, as in "your book" (the book belongs to you).
"You're," on the other hand, is a contraction of "you are." It's confusing because apostrophes are commonly used to indicate possession. If you're ever in doubt, write your sentence without contractions and edit it afterwards.
"Its" is a possessive pronoun, as in "its colour" (or "the colour of that thing).
"It's" is a contraction of "it is." As with "your vs you're," write your sentence without contractions if you need to double-check things!
“There” is used many ways, including as a reference to a place (“let’s go there”) or as a pronoun (“there is no hope”).
“Their” is a plural possessive pronoun, as in “their bags” or “their opinions.” Always do the “that’s ours!” test—are you talking about more than one person and something that they possess? If so, “their” will get you there.
"They're" is like "it's" or "you're", and is a contraction of "they are."
“Affect” is a verb, as in “Your ability to communicate clearly will affect your income immensely.” “Effect” is a noun, as in “The effect of a parent’s low income on a child’s future is well documented.”
One way to remember this is "A for Action" - since "affect" is a verb!
By thinking in terms of “the effect,” you can usually sort out which is which, because you can’t stick a “the” in front of a verb. While some people do use “effect” as a verb (“a strategy to effect a settlement”), they are usually lawyers, and you should therefore ignore them if you want to write like a human.
(Or, if you want to avoid this problem altogether, just use the word "impact," which can be either a verb or a noun and has roughly the same meaning as "affect" and "effect"!)
The dangling participle may be the most egregious of the most common writing mistakes. Not only will this error damage the flow of your writing, but it can also make it impossible for someone to understand what you’re trying to say.
A participle is a verb that is used as an adjective, and often ends in "ing" or "ed" (for more about participles, read Purdue OWL's post "Participles"). A dangling participle occurs when this verb modifies a different noun than was intended.
For example:
After fermenting in the cellar for weeks, my brother brought up some pickles.
In this example, it sounds like my brother was the one fermenting rather than the pickles.
Possible rephrasing:
After the pickles fermented in the cellar for weeks, my brother brought some up.
My brother brought up some pickles that had been fermenting in the cellar for weeks.
Running down the street, the backpack fell off my shoulder.
In this example, it sounds like the backpack was the one running.
Possible rephrasing
The backpack fell off my shoulder when I was running down the street.
When I was running down the street, the backpack fell off my shoulder.
The problem with both of the above sentences is that the participial phrase that begins the sentence is not intended to modify what follows next in the sentence. However, readers mentally expect it to work that way, so your opening phrase should always modify what immediately follows. If it doesn’t, you’ve left the participle dangling, as well as your reader
[This guide was compiled using information from the article "5 grammar mistakes that make you look dumb" http://www.copyblogger.com/5-common-mistakes-that-make-you-look-dumb/]
Test your knowledge of how to use some common words that sound similar but have different meanings.
This infographic-styled webpage by The Oatmeal offers some commonly misspelled words, and some fun ways to remember the correct spelling.
This guide was created/compiled by Amanda Wills and last updated by Teevin Fournier in 2025. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY NC SA 4.0 International License.