Grammar Help! Affect or Effect?
Affect vs. Effect
Don’t know if you had an effect or affect? Here’s help.
The majority of the time, AFFECT is a verb and should be used to denote action in a sentence (“The heat and humidity affected the athlete’s performance.”), and EFFECT is a noun and can be used as the subject or object in a sentence (“It’s difficult to determine what effect the heat had on the athlete’s performance.”).
There are rare instances, however, when the two switch places.
AFFECT can be a noun when referenced in psychology as the mood a person appears to have (“She presented a sad affect.”).
EFFECT becomes a verb when it’s used to mean “to bring about” or “to accomplish” (“The employee hoped her proposal would effect change in the office.”).
Since those two instances are less commonly used in everyday speech, keep them in the back of your mind, but remember the basic rule:
Affect = verb.
Effect = noun.
Hope today’s post has a positive effect on your writing!
