Grammar Points - It's vs. Its

Grammar Points is going to be kind of a quick-hitter series that looks to address some common writing questions/difficulties that even accomplished writers can encounter. This first one is a doozy, and you'll find it handled incorrectly even by the most learned folks.

It's  vs.  Its

What's interesting about this is that the two words have such distinct definitions that, as long as you know what you're talking about, it's easy to use the right one. See? I just did.

It's

The word "it's," as you can see, is a contraction. You're combining two words ("it" and "is") into a single contracted word. The value in using the contraction over the individual words is that you don't sound like Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. So unless you want to get used to randomly tilting your head and wearing a ton of white makeup, you'll find yourself using this contraction regularly when describing an action that an object is taking, or a state that an object is in. Some examples:

Your face doesn't look as pretty when it's covered in makeup.

It's raining pretty hard out there.

Its

In contrast to the use of "it's," the use of "its" is solely to describe possession. The reason people get tripped up is that most of the time, when you type about someone owning something, you use an apostrophe followed by the letter "s." For example, "Joe's butt looks big in those pants."

(Joke's on you guys, my butt looks big in all pants).

By contrast, because of the way we use the "it's" contraction, the English language makes a special exception for the "apostrophe-s" rule. In order to demonstrate possession by something referred to as "it," we add the "s" but without the apostrophe. The rule actually exists to increase clarity in writing, which is kind of funny because of the confusion people have towards the words. But in truth, as long as you take the time to train yourself, you'll find that knowing the difference and being able to read and write the two words with confidence will help you immensely.

Once again, here are some examples:

A good deed is its own reward.

Your Corvette has lost its luster.

Tricks

Whenever possible, I'll provide you with a few tricks you can use when you're confused about word usage. This one isn't super easy, but it'll always get you the right answer, and that's at least as valuable. When you're unsure, try swapping in "it is" for the word you're using. If it works, you want to use "it's." If not, you're looking for "its."

If you run into a circumstance where you're just not sure, feel free to drop me a line in the comments. I'll take a look at it and let you know.

Good Point Editing

If you've been keeping up with GoodPointJoe's blog posts, you know that on New Year's Day, I gave kind of a soft reveal on the fact that I've been working on getting an editing side business going. This is the "hard reveal," and I'll give you a little more information on my process.

I've been doing editing for friends and family for years, and my time as a technical support staff member at Westat put me into a position where I was constantly writing and reviewing emails, memos, manuals, instructions, and other content. That "wordwork" was actually the most rewarding part of my job, so lately I've been seeking out independent opportunities to exercise that skill set.

The most prominent project I've been working on is assisting a friend of a friend in developing his website, ALTInsider.com. It's a site about how to make the most of your life working as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in Japan. I've worked with him for several hours, helping to clarify and refine his message, and I have a standing agreement to continue to offer reviews of new content that he produces.

I've also assisted other friends with smaller tasks, such as college homework assignments, blog posts, and professional letters. I enjoy the opportunity to help someone convey their intended message with the highest possible clarity and readability. Some have been free (usually family), some have been for a nominal fee.

But since I started doing this more regularly, I've been working on creating a framework for offering this kind of service to a broader audience. While continuing to take advantage of personal contacts, I'm hoping to find a way to offer my services to college students, small business owners, and other independent folks who could use a hand crafting their messages. If any of you reading this blog have a need of that kind of assistance, let me know! Friends and family always get a discount!

Since you guys are kind of behind the curtain, though, I'd love to hear any feedback on what I've got set up so far. The two key pages I have are my landing page and my request form. This is a situation where I actually want you to tell me everything that bothers you about either page. The landing page feels a little text-heavy, but I'm not sure what to cut, if anything. Your input is most welcome.

And as I said, your business is welcome here, too.

2015 - The Year of the Blog

Longtime blog-readers will know that 2014 was a pretty solid year for this blog. While it wasn't as prolific as some years, I feel like I provided some of my best content overall in 2014. Between some standard sports posts, a few new feature-style sports posts, and a variety of gaming-related articles, I generated something for everyone. Alright, well, not everyone, but anybody who would've come to the blog in the first place should have been able to find something fun to read.

Still, when it comes down to it, I had higher hopes for the blog than the totality of the year that I had. I wanted to expand the features to include not just baseball stories, but interesting tales from other sports as well. And just on sheer volume, there were extended periods during which I didn't provide any content, and I don't feel great about that.

But, rather than lament about opportunities lost, I'm going to set goals for the coming year. Most of these will be blog-related goals, but I'm going to throw a few other goals up there, just so you know what I've got brewing in my mind, and so that I feel a little more beholden to the goals, since "everyone" will know about them.

Here goes.

1. Publish a blog post at least once every week. There's really no reason I couldn't do this; there have been stretches on the blog when I've posted 2-3 times a week for over a month. Part of what hangs me up is that a lot of my blog ideas are larger posts; the CS:GO trade-up post took me over a month to compose and revise. So, this goal is going to have a couple of sub-goals:
   
   • Plan ahead. Have a couple of larger posts in the pot simmering at all times, and try to schedule posts in advance
   • Find smaller post options. Not everything has to be a six page epic about the adventures of Bret Saberhagen. Some of them, sure, just not all of them.
     
2. Post about the big three at least once a month. My big three topics are sports (baseball), sports (non-baseball), and gaming (board or video). This plan should help me get focused on my bigger posts, and also help give myself some direction for goal #1.
   
3. Get my editing landing page refined and ready to share. Most of you are probably unaware this has been going on in the background, but I've been spending some time trying to set myself up to offer editing services. I've been editing for a website for a few months, and editing for friends, family, and co-workers for years. I'm hoping to turn those skills into a small supplemental income. So as the main part of that, I've been working on a landing page to be able to link for potential customers. My goal is to have that up and running by the end of January.
   
4. Stream more (or at all). Longtime readers will know that a previous role of this blog was to support a regular Friday night Twitch stream by myself and two friends. We streamed mostly Magic, and we generated a small but robust following. Problems with Twitch, changes in our personal responsibilities, a general displeasure with Magic's recent sets, and MTGO's consistent bugs and other issues made us mostly give up the streaming game, but almost any time I've streamed solo, I've still enjoyed it. Whenever I set out to stream again I seem to get distracted from it, but hopefully establishing it as a goal will get me back on the horse. And of course, I'll continue to use this blog to support the stream, when necessary.
   
5. If possible, find ways to monetize the blog that also add value to it. I have an affiliate partnership with Amazon.com, and Amazon has thousands of ways to link to their goods and services. Right now I just have a single banner advertising Amazon Prime, but I'm thinking that with sufficient commitment, I may be able to post timely advertisements of great deals to both provide a useful deal-finding service to readers, and create a small amount of income for myself. I'm sure there are other ways to effectively monetize the blog, but those will take some further research.
   
6. Post something in the Steam Workshop. There are two possible avenues I could use here. The first is posting a CS:GO skin. I've tinkered with the workbench a little bit, and while I'm no expert, I'm definitely more comfortable with it than I was at the outset. I haven't made anything too exciting so far, but I've got some more content to work with, so we'll see if it goes anywhere.
   
   The second possibility is posting a collection on Tabletop Simulator, a recent gift I received (thanks Nick). I've collected a few items and boards from other workshop posts, and I'd like to assemble a kind of "catch-all" collection for a certain tabletop role-playing game I've played with a few friends. (Nerd alert! Just kidding, you knew I was a nerd when I started posting Magic decks.)

So those are my blog/internet goals for the coming year. I'm hoping to increase the amount of content I provide overall, as well as hopefully generating a little bit of revenue.

If you've got any suggestions or naysaying you'd like to offer, feel free to post a comment.

Happy new year!