Which one do I use?? Affect or Effect?? I find myself asking this question a lot! I can distingush between other homonyms such as their, there, and they're but I just can seem to grasp this one.
When writing a paper I usually think I'm using the correct one when in reality I have just guessed in hopes it was right. However now I know the defintions and some examples to help me out because of this website.
Affect means:
To have an influence on or effect a change in
To act on the emotions of; touch or move
To attack or infect, as a disease
Effect means:
Something brought about by a cause or agent; a result.
The power to produce an outcome or achieve a result; influence.
Some examples of theses words are as follows: Talking about a result, then use effect.
- Example: What effect did the loss have on the team?
Describing something that was caused or brought about, use effect.
- Example: The new manager effected some positive changes in the office.
Affect can be used as a noun to describe facial expression.
- Example: The young man with schizophrenia had a flat affect.
- Example: The woman took the news of her husband's sudden death with little affect.
Affect can also be used as a verb when describing how something has influenced someone, rather then causing it.
- Example: How does the crime rate affect hiring levels by local police forces?
- Example: The weather conditions will affect the number of people who come to the county fair this year.
Now that I have seen the examples and know the definition I can hopefully know which word to use, at least that is my goal!!
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