Example
influence (verb)
Have an effect on behaviour, opinions or decisions, often indirectly.
Advertising strongly influences what children ask their parents to buy.
Written by Fizza Butool Zaidi and Ali Zaidi
13 alternatives
Have an effect on behaviour, opinions or decisions, often indirectly.
Advertising strongly influences what children ask their parents to buy.
Have a noticeable effect; add an adjective for direction.
Remote work has had a positive impact on many parents' work-life balance.
Influence how something develops over time.
The books we read as children shape our values.
Change something.
Smartphones have altered the way people navigate cities.
Don't swap blindly: Alter means change, not just affect. Use it only if the thing itself changed.
Affect badly; general.
Long working hours can harm both physical and mental health.
Cause harm, especially to things, reputations and relationships.
A single scandal can damage a company's reputation for years.
Affect well.
Flexible hours benefit employees with young children.
Decide the result completely.
Family income still largely determines which university a student attends.
Don't swap blindly: Stronger than affect: it means 'decide'. Use 'influence' for a partial effect.
Be one of several causes.
Poor diet contributes to a range of health problems.
Have a slowly growing bad effect.
Years of night shifts can take a toll on workers' health.
Stop something working normally.
Strikes disrupted rail services for most of the month.
Be relevant to and affect; formal.
A candidate's age should have no bearing on the hiring decision.
Bring about a change; formal and rare.
Only governments have the power to effect change on this scale.
Don't swap blindly: Effect as a verb means 'make happen', not 'affect'. 'Pollution effects health' is wrong.
Paraphrasing
Band tip: the public IELTS Writing band descriptors for Lexical Resource describe Band 7 as using “less common lexical items” with “some awareness of style and collocation”. A synonym that changes your meaning or breaks a collocation works against you, so choose the word that fits the sentence, not the rarest one you know.
In context
Social media influences how teenagers see themselves. Constant comparison with edited images can damage self-esteem, and late-night scrolling takes a toll on sleep. However, these platforms also benefit isolated young people by connecting them with others who share their interests, so their overall impact depends on how they are used.
Affect is usually a verb: 'Stress affects memory.' Effect is usually a noun: 'Stress has an effect on memory.' Effect as a verb exists but means 'bring about': 'effect change'.
Influence and have an impact on are neutral. Harm, damage and benefit show direction; determine shows a decisive effect; contribute to shows one of several causes.
It is widely used ('Prices impacted sales'), but some examiners and style guides prefer 'have an impact on' or 'affect'. In an exam, the noun form is the safer choice.
Close, but influence suggests an indirect effect, especially on people's thinking or behaviour. Affect is broader and can be physical: 'The drought affected crops.'
Practise
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