ShmoopTube

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Affect versus Effect, a la Shmoop. If you suffer from Affect-Effect Switcheroo

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Syndrome, don’t worry… you’re not alone. It’s an easily curable grammatical disease…

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here’s the first thing you need to know:

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Generally speaking, “affect” spelled with an “a” is a verb...

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...and “effect” spelled with an “e” is a noun.

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The verb “affect”...

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...that's “affect” with an “a”...

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...means “to influence” or “to change.”

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The movie “Twilight” affected Joe Bob's faith in humanity.

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Yeah, it affected ours, too. The verb “affect”...

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...that's “affect” with an “a” again...

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...can also mean “to act in a way you don't feel.”

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Joe Bob affected a love for “Twilight” so Betty Jean would go out with him. Yeah…

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Betty Jean is smokin' hot. Now, the noun “effect”...

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...that's “effect” with an “e”...

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...essentially means “a result.”

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For example, Sue watched the movie Grown-Ups so many times that it had a negative effect

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on her brain cells.

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Want help remembering which is which?

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Affect is a verb… and starts with the same letter as action.

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Effect is a noun… and starts with the same letter as entity.

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Of course, there are a few exceptions to the rules…

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…for example, if you do something nice for Mother Earth, it could be said that you are

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“effecting change”…

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…but as long as you remember that affect with an a is almost always a verb and effect

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with an e is almost always a noun… you’ll be good to go.

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And that’s… a-fact.

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