If They're Going There, They Need To Get Their Stories Straight

They sound alike... even look a little bit alike. But they're, their and there simply aren't interchangeable. It's an easy mistake, substituting one for the other. But if you don't catch the error, your readers will.

In proofreading your work, it's never a bad idea to slow down and give a little extra attention to these troublemakers.

They're: is a contraction used in place of 'they are.' 

The apostrophe denotes the place from which the 'a' in 'are' has been removed to form the contraction. 

Their: is possessive. 

It indicates ownership by them. 

There: generally refers to location (*). 

You can easily remember it because it contains the word 'here,' which also deals with location.

.(*) Of course, there are other uses for 'there.' See? There's another one! If you want to know more, check it out at dictionary.com.

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I Shudder When I See the Open Shutter

This one's pretty easy.

 Use 'shutter' for a thing on a window or camera that can open and close (the SHUT in SHUTTER).

 Use 'shudder' for trembling, shivering, shaking, etc.

This can be an easy typo to make--especially for those among us who write romance novels or scary stories, because there can be a lot of shuddering going on in those genres.

We get accustomed to typing 'shudder' and, the next thing we know, we've given windows and cameras the shakes.