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Commonly confused words

Affect vs Effect and How to Tell Them Apart

Affect is usually a verb and effect is usually a noun. Learn the RAVEN trick, the rare exceptions (effect change, a flat affect) and test yourself with a quiz.

  • All levels
  • 2 min read
  • 5-question quiz

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Affect and effect sound almost identical in everyday speech, they're related in meaning, and they differ by a single letter. No wonder they're among the most confused words in English. Fortunately, one rule handles about 95% of real sentences.

Affect: the verb

Affect means to have an influence on something:

  • The cold weather affected the turnout.
  • How will the rule change affect my score?
  • She was deeply affected by the film.

Effect: the noun

Effect is the result, the change that happened:

  • The new rule had a big effect on scoring.
  • The medicine's side effects were mild.
  • The film had a powerful effect on her.

Notice how the pairs mirror each other: something affects you, and then you feel its effect.

A test you can use in any sentence

  1. Is there an article or adjective in front, such as an, the, a big, side or special? Then you need the noun: effect.
  2. Can you replace the word with influence (verb) or change (verb)? Then you need affect.
  3. Can you replace it with result? Then you need effect.

The drought ___ the harvest. → The drought influenced the harvest works → affected.

The drought had a terrible ___ on the harvest. → a terrible result works → effect.

The exceptions

Effect as a verb

Effect can be a verb meaning to bring about or to cause to happen. It's formal and most common in the phrase effect change:

  • The new manager effected several changes. (She made changes happen.)
  • The new manager affected several changes. (She influenced changes that were already happening.)

Those two sentences mean different things, which is why the distinction matters.

Affect as a noun

In psychology, affect (stressed on the first syllable, AF-fect) is a noun meaning a person's visible emotional expression: The patient had a flat affect. Outside clinical writing you'll rarely need it.

Word Part of speech Example
effective adjective an effective strategy
effectively adverb she played effectively
in effect phrase (in practice; in force) the rule is now in effect
affected adjective (artificial) an affected accent
affection noun (fondness) a sign of affection

Note that in effect and take effect always use effect: The ban takes effect on Monday.

Practice quiz

Test yourself

0 / 5 answered

  1. 1. "The noise ___ my concentration."
  2. 2. "The noise had a bad ___ on my concentration."
  3. 3. "The new law will take ___ in January."
  4. 4. Which sentence means the manager brought changes about?
  5. 5. "Caffeine ___ people in different ways."
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