Its/it's

[admylin]

I've just proof read a clinical study paper about deep brain stimulation and one of the authors says the 'it's' that I inserted (see below) should be its - he sounded so sure of himself. Who's wrong?

'Our results suggest that DBS of the EPN and CM-Pf exerts it?s therapeutic effect on Levodopa-induced dyskinesias in the 6-OHDA rat PD model independently from it?s effect on beta activity'

You are, sorry, both times.

"it's" is short for "it is".

no. your editor is right.

The it in question is not a person, so the possessive apostrophe is not right.

in that sentence I would just say 'its therapeutic effect on levodopa""_(*&

You are. It should be 'its' both times.

don't ever argue with somebody unless you know WHY you are right.

oops, I'm not with it today.

Bold, thanks goodness I didn't argue with him - I just said leave me with it and I'll finish it in the next 10 minutes.

Good! it's the words like levodopainduced dyskenesis that would have me boggle-eyed! and you can cope with those words!?

That sounds a lot like the texts I used to proofread, admylin - it's easy to overlook the little words sometimes when you're puzzling over the big ones!

We were given an explanation at school as to why "its" doesn't have an apostrophe in this context, but I never quite understood it - just remembered that it hasn't!

I know, they have got to be the most boring things to proof read, no the worst I ever did was a PhD thesis where the subject had to do with comparing methods for statistics (she was a maths student) and it was painfull!

I'm not with it this morning, woke at 5am with headache and stiff neck - took tablets and then dh started a round of early morning snoring so couldn't get back to sleep then this study needed proof read straight away as has to be submitted today ...and the breakfast things are still on the table.

We used to have to compare German and French texts with their English translations and I would find myself falling asleep over them sometimes. The German texts were the worst, as you often wouldn't come to the verb until half a page later and had to keep it in your head until then.

Hope your headache is better now - really not what you need when you have to concentrate on something. You've just reminded me that I still haven't tidied up after breakfast either - will go and do it now while I make myself a coffee! I've just been proofreading one of my own translations and need something to wake myself up...

The way I remember is that there are no apostrophes in "his" or "hers" (also possessive) so none in the possessive "its".

Actually, I'd quite like to read the rest of the paper - I know what it's talking about......

Actually IT'S probably top secret as ITS content is not yet published ...

I suspect it is, admylin, that's what I was hinting to you