Commonly Confused: Affect vs. Effect

The English language is a confusing one, and there are plenty of words that are easy to mix up and tricky to differentiate. Affect and effect, for instance, are often misplaced and misused simply because they look and sound so similar. For me, the most helpful way to remember words is to read their definitions and use them in a practice sentence. I’m hoping that this method will help you too, and you can apply it to affect and effect, and any other words you find hard to remember or easy to confuse with others.

Affect (verb): to produce an effect upon: such as to produce a material influence upon or alteration in, or to act upon (a person, a person's mind or feelings, etc.) so as to effect a response

Effect (noun): something that inevitably follows an antecedent (such as a cause or agent)

Basically, what affect means is “cause,” like in the phrase “cause and effect,” which is a good way to remember the difference between the two words. Very generally, affect is a word that refers to causes of effects, and effect refers to things that are happening due to some external cause (the affect). Affect influences other things, while effect is the result of something being influenced. They can be confusing, but let’s look at the words in sentence format.

The snow affected Dana’s ability to see the road while driving.

In this sentence, you would want to use affect instead of effect because you’re referring to something that influences Dana’s driving—and affect is the word that influences things. Here’s a sentence using effect instead.

The snow gave the road a slippery effect.

Here, the road is slippery because it’s being influenced by something else; in this case, the snow. So you would want to use the word effect, because it’s natural for an effect to follow a cause, right?

Remembering the definitions and proper use of words is hard, but it will always get better with practice. If you want to practice more with affect and effect (or any other confusing words you’ve decided to tackle), try writing practice sentences on your own, with the definitions of the words in mind. This will help you become more familiar with the words themselves. If you ever come across them in your own reading, take a few seconds to understand why one word is used and the other isn’t in that specific case.

I used Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary for the definitions of affect and effect, so if you’re ever confused about the meaning of a word, head there; Merriam-Webster’s provides examples along with definitions, which I always find especially helpful.

Hopefully this post helped clear up a little confusion between affect and effect, and best of luck in all your future word adventures!

~K