Affect/effect

It’s an easy enough mistake to make given how similar these two words look and sound, but there’s a simple explanation to help you remember the difference.

The rules:

Affect is a verb – “to affect” – meaning to influence or have an impact on something.

Effect is the noun – “a positive effect” – referring to the result of being affected by something.

There is also a verb “to effect”, meaning to bring something about – “to effect a change”. However, this is not very commonly used, so we’ve left it out of the examples below to avoid confusion.

How not to do it:

He waited for the medicine to have an affect

They were directly effected by the flooding

How to do it properly:

He waited for the medicine to have an effect

They were directly affected by the flooding