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Confused? This will have an effect on you…

No matter how often we edit, re-edit, have someone else edit, then re-edit again, even through draft than final stages, there is no perfectly written story or article—things just get missed sometimes. Some of that is often left to the subjectivity of editors. One editor may prefer you state “…the sky is blue” while another editor might prefer for you to write “…the blue skies.” However, where most editors agree is that all writers should follow some type of style guide for uniformity.

Style guides, manuals and books come in many forms, those for college research papers and those for media publication. In college one professor may require you to use the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers while another professor my prefer The Chicago Manual of Style. A media publication will require you write using the Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law.

Now don’t get confused, style guides are used for accurate formatting and “style” of a document or manuscript and differs from actual “writing style” of an author. Think of it in this manner, all photography books will preach some type of basics, fundamentals and rules of photography, but each photographer has her or her own “shooting style.”

However, whether a photographer or dentist, at one point we’re all called to write some type of document, paper, article, memo or correspondence and we should all follow basic English grammar rules. Speaking of grammar, there are even grammar style guides too.

This is why everyone should own some type of style guide as a handy reference. I’ll give you an example, military titles are often written in many formats. The military itself has their internal abbreviations for military ranks. In the U.S. Army, internally a sergeant is abbreviated as simply SGT for a “buck sergeant” while SSG is used for staff sergeant and SFC is used for sergeant first-class. Yet when written for external information by the military public affairs office and civilian media, sergeant is abbreviated as Sgt., staff sergeant as Staff Sgt. and sergeant first-class as Sgt. 1st Class.

While military titles are not always the norm of the common civilian writer, misuses of common words are, for example, is it affect or effect? According to all the style guides, affect, when used as a verb means to “influence” while effect, when used as a verb means to (cause) cause something. Confusing, well not really, as an example sentence, “Jolynn will affect my thoughts during the exam because she’s got a hot body and always wears tight, low-waist pants exposing her panties and goes braless in a low-cut blouse which I’m sure will effect my test results.” (Now how many men just got lost reading this?)

Affect should always be avoided as a noun, though it is “occasionally used in psychology to describe an emotion, but there is no need for it in everyday language,” states the AP Stylebook. On the other hand, effect is probably used more as a noun than verb because it’s often used to emphasize the result of an affect. For example, “The affect of alcohol in my blood system will have an effect on me believing every girl is beautiful and hopefully when I wake up in the morning the effect of my actions will not affect my mood.”

Let’s take a look at that last sentence substituting influence for affect and cause for effect. “The influence of alcohol in my blood system will cause me to believe every girl is beautiful and hopefully when I wake up in the morning the cause of my actions will not influence my mood.”

Rule of thumb, affect is to influence and effect is the cause. Perhaps it’s easier to think of it as action creates a reaction or influence causes something. Ever heard of cause and affect? Or is it effect? I dare you to figure that one out. The funny thing is when you Google “cause and affect” you get 52 million results and when you Google “cause and effect” you get 24 million results. The funny thing, under “cause and affect” Google asks, “Do you really mean cause and effect?” Which is it, because the affect of the question can have a mind-boggling effect?

Now sometimes it’s best to just drop affect and effect in a sentence and use their replacements for a more conversational style of English. As an example:

(bad)
Now perhaps the affect of my words was good for you and it will effect you to return in a positive manner because I want to affect your brain as much as possible so you’ll bring your friends to this blog which will effect my mind to churn more words out.

(better)
Now perhaps the influence of my words was good for you and it will cause you to return in a positive manner because I want to influence your brain as much as possible so you’ll bring your friends to this blog which will cause my mind to churn more words out.

Well I have to run now and hopefully providing you a writing tip will affect your decision for owning a style guide manual for a positive effect on your future writings, correspondence, conversation and all that other communication crap. Now the dare, I dare you to come up with your own examples, but try the words below with a “style guide mentality” in mind:

• there, their
• it, it’s
• adopt, approve, enact, pass
• accept, except
• adverse, averse
• admit, admitted
• aid, aide
• agnostic, atheist
• airline, airlines (got to give you an easy one)
• all right, alright (tough one)
• all-time, all time
• among, between
• anticipate, expect
• anybody, any body, anyone, any one
• arbitrate, mediate
• assassin, killer, murder
• attorney, lawyer (be careful, don’t think common usage)
• awhile, a while
• back up, backup
• back yard, backyard
• Baptist, baptist (there is a difference, your spell-check may tell you not, but the style guide will tell you different)
• because, since
• biannual, biennial
• blast off, blastoff
• bloc, block
• box office, box-office
• boycott, embargo
• break in, break-in
• break-up, break up
• British, Briton(s)
• brunet, brunette (think gender here)
• bug, tap
• build up, build-up
• burglary, larceny, robbery, theft

I dare you to figure some of these out, at least for your own personal knowledge and education. I dare you to find a mistake in this article, I’m sure there is one, hey, I’ve barely slept! I dare you…Thanks, Rolando

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