Affect vs effect use

Question

I am tangled with the problem of using affect /effect.

In an experiment,

The defocusing of projector lens blurs the projected images that are projected onto an object.The projected images are used to generate the shape of the object using a method X.

Now I want opinion regarding these cases

Projected images are effected/affected by defocusing
The defocusing of images further effects/affects the method X.
The method X is effected/affected by defocusing.
The defocusing of projected images further effects/affects object's shape.

Without knowing the intended meaning for your sentences it’s impossible to say. For example In sentence 1. Are you saying that you are creating the projected images by defocusing or are you saying that the projected images are changed by the defocusing? — Jim, May 02 '20 at 18:10
When the projector lens is moved to out of focus position it's called defocusing.. This defocusing just like our movie projectors blurs the projected image — liwei, May 02 '20 at 18:22

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 15 '20 at 07:40

2

From Cambridge:

affect (v): to have an influence on someone or something, or to cause a change in someone or something

effect (v): to achieve something and cause it to happen

So, I would say you should use affect in each of your examples:

Images are affected by defocusing.

Defocusing affects images.

Defocusing affects image's shape.

Method is affected by defocusing.

You could use effect in a sentence such as the following:

Defocusing effects (that is, brings about or causes) the desired fuzziness in the photographic image.

edited Jun 15 '20 at 07:40

Community

1

answered May 05 '20 at 18:58

Richard Kayser

18,028

So what if defocusing causes blurring of image generated by method X. Will it be"defocusing effects image recontruction in Method X??" – liwei May 07 '20 at 17:58

lumbrjak · Answer 2 · 2020-05-07T02:53:55.683

0

In your use case scenario:
Affect is a verb: "Doing X will affect Y."
Effect is a noun: "The effect of doing X can easily be seen in the change in Y."

An easy exercise for learning the different use cases would be to replace these homophones in the following way to see if they make sense:

Replace "affect" with "cause a change in": Doing X will cause a change in Y. Replace "effect" with "result": "The result of doing X can easily be seen in the change in Y."

edited May 07 '20 at 02:53

answered May 05 '20 at 17:30

lumbrjak

509
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6

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These tend to be the more common usages, but it's far from absolute that effect is always a noun and affect is always a verb. Effect can be used as a verb, meaning to cause something. Similarly, affect can be used as a noun, meaning the outward display of one's emotions. The tip about seeing what replacement word fits still works, though. – Nuclear Hoagie May 05 '20 at 17:36

Affect vs effect use

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