We have our first email question. This is from Robin in Syracuse, NY:
"How about effect and affect? I am often confused and see the same confusion in my students’ papers. Even when I try to clarify that affect is acting on and effect is the result of."
Great question. These are tricky. The best way to remember the difference is to remember the part of speech for these words.
Affect is a verb. It describes an action, specifically the act of producing a change or influencing. So, for instance, Jane affected (influenced) her husband's outfit by saying the shirt and pants did not match.
Effect is primarily a noun. It is a thing. It usually means result. The effect (result) of Jane's comment was that her husband changed his pants.
Just to make matters worse, effect can also be a verb. In this form, effect means to bring about. This usage is less common. The company effected (brought about) new rules for drug safety policies.
The way I usually tell my students to remember is if you can subsitute in "influence" you want affect, and if you can substitute in "result" you want effect.
Daniele, do you have any handy tricks for this one?
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Here's my trick: A is for "action" and A is for "affect". Thus "affect" is the action word. E is for "end" and E is for "effect". Thus "effect" is the end (result).
And from _The Wrong Word Dictionary: 2,000 Most Commonly Confused Words_:
"If you affect something, you can have an effect on it" (22).
How funny! I was just going to ask you two to talk about these words, because I was at a conference where the presenters consistently goofed it up. Thanks for reading my mind!
Hey, that's us: mind reading extraordinaires! You should try to play against us in a game Taboo or Catch Phrase when we're on the same team...
One thing that I have in my handy-dandy-notebook is:
affect (with an accent over the e) - v. have influence on
affect (with an accent over the a) - n. emotion
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