Your vs. You’re: Write or Wrong
Posted by Aja on July 6th, 2010
Photo Courtesy of Andy Newson
My Write or Wrong feature is designed to help you avoid those common grammatical and spelling errors that can cause your written business communications to look unprofessional. It is fairly easy to differentiate between the words “Your” and “you’re”, yet this is one of the mistakes that I see used wrong most often.
“Your” is the possessive form of “you”. It works in the same way as “his”, “hers”, or “ours”.
Example:
Your company will gain increased visibility.
“You’re”, on the other hand, is a contraction, made up of the words “you are”.
Example:
You’re not going to benefit from poor planning.
And the two of them together:
If you’re not acting strategically, your company will suffer.
If you get stuck, substitute “you are” in the place of the word. If it works, use “you’re”. If it doesn’t, write your.