They're actually pretty close and confusing: Affect is the influence or impact on something. Effect is the result of the influence or impact on something. Th

They're actually pretty close and confusing: Affect is the influence or impact on something. Effect is the result of the influence or impact on something. The simplest way to think about it is that 'affect' is a verb and 'effect' is a noun, but they refer to essentially the same thing (you could define 'affect' as 'to have an effect on' something). But even that is confused by things like the verb phrase 'effect change'. Which word you use might actually just come down to which way you're talking about something, but broadly affect is the action and effect is the result.