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50 years of success - Established 1974

50 Years of Success
Established in 1974

"Helping you gain
.control of your career"

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In this issue we consider how adopting a truly professional attitude can boost your career prospects and look at some tips for ensuring that you’re never ‘lost for words’ in your business correspondence.

Before I finish I’d like to go back to the idea of ‘problem words’. Two that seem particularly tricky are affect and effect. So many people get these two mixed up and I’d just like to say thanks to Writers Bureau tutor, Sue Wilkes, for a very clear explanation that she recently provided for a student. She’s agreed to let me share it with you – so here it is:

Affect is a verb which means ‘to influence’ or ‘have an effect on’ e.g. I hope the weather won’t affect our planned picnic. It can also mean ’to pretend to have’, or ‘feel’.

Effect can be used as a verb or a noun. As a verb it means ‘to bring about’ or ‘accomplish’ e.g. The prisoner effected his escape.

As a noun, effect has various meanings: - result, consequence, impression, property...

The film had amazing sound effects.

The new rules will take effect from Monday.

The home decorators produced wonderful effects with their colour scheme.

Mr Jones lost all his personal effects in the fire.

At least you shouldn’t have any problems getting it right in future. So until next time...


European Association for Distance Learning Institute of Training and Occupational Learning

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