Affect and effect are easy to confuse because they sound similar, but they usually play different jobs in a sentence.
Most of the time, affect is a verb. It means to influence or to change something.
- Rain can affect travel.
- Lack of sleep can affect your focus.
Most of the time, effect is a noun. It means a result or an outcome.
- The effect was obvious.
- One effect of stress is fatigue.
There is also a less common use of effect as a verb. In that case, it means to bring about or to cause to happen.
- The new policy effected change.
A simple memory tip is this: if you mean influence, choose affect. If you mean result, choose effect. That rule will be correct in most everyday writing.
