Find the Error 49 < Check It Again! Index (Extract adapted from an article in a prospectus produced by a large FE college)   What kind of mistake do you see? (Choose one:) apostrophes articles doesn't make sense punctuation singular / plural spelling                               Answer: apostrophes The problem with apostrophes comes in the third sentence, which should read: 'The students' union has its own facilities on both campuses …' We use the word 'its' because 'its' is a possessive form which describes the relationship between 'The students' union' and 'facilities on both campuses'. The facilities belong to the students' union. The word 'it's' is completely different. It is a verb form, which can indicate not one but two verbs – either verb 'to be', as in 'it is', or verb 'to have', as in 'it has'. 'Its' is a possessive adjective, like 'my', 'your', 'his', 'her', 'our' and 'their', which shows that something belongs to the pronoun 'it', meaning a thing, an object or a place. In fact, anything which doesn't have a gender (male or female). 'The students' union' is a place, an inanimate object which doesn't have a gender, so the right possessive form to use is 'its'. Click here to download this page as a free .PDF worksheet