How do I know if I am using the right affect/effect? The text is: She was about to discover that it would have a life changing effect/affect.
by 
Imagineme25
ANSWERS: 4
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In that context it would be effect.
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An effect is passive. it happens to it. You would have to affect something to have an effect on it.
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"Affect" is not commonly used as a noun, at least in most colloquial writing and speech. It can be a noun, but you wouldn't see it in this sense. (It has meanings in psychology that I won't go into here. A dictionary will explain.) "Effect" is used as a verb, but that's not a particularly common usage: "The man effected change in the company when he was promoted to management." "Affect" is very commonly used as a verb, and "effect" is very commonly used as a noun. His mother's death AFFECTED him greatly. When his mother died, the whole family felt the EFFECT. After he died, the police returned his effects to his mother. (Just another fairly common use of "effect" as a noun, but not the one you had in mind above.) "Affect" as a verb also means "to make a pretense of" or "to act", as: "He affected the role of a ballerina, but he didn't have the legs for it." (Not so common, but it is another sense of the word.)
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In standard language, effect is a noun and affect is a verb. There are exceptions, but they're rare enough that this rule still stands.
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