"superficial effect" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to refer to a change or effect that has a limited or shallow level of impact. For example, "The new policy had a superficial effect on crime rates; the numbers continued to remain the same despite this change."
But there's an honesty about the performance that's totally convincing; nothing, you sense, is being done just for superficial effect.
This will have the short-term, superficial effect of making everything look neater, simpler and more straightforward.
"The assumption," she writes, "seems to be that feminising Lear has only a superficial effect on the play's meaning … [However,] Lear's gender isn't irrelevant: he is a king, an absolute patriarch, in a society that is absolutely patriarchal".
In both thermographic images the heat was dispersed around the surface of the cracks, demonstrating a superficial effect.
I knew in my heart, however, that this was a superficial effect.
Another difference is that radial shockwaves have a more superficial effect on tissue, compared to focused shockwaves which reach a maximal energy in the focus that is located deeper into the tissue [ 19].
Mr. Maazel never went for superficial effects, instead producing intensity through clarity and control.
The other, a percussionist, insisted sullenly that Shostakovich was "nothing but a string of superficial effects".
What Mr Heath will have to do if he returns to Downing Street is to go on telling the truth simply to the people, make no easy promises and resist the civil service and political advice that clings to the conventional and settles in superficial effects.
The paper aims to describe general characteristic of dissolution phenomena, to interpret their conditioning factors and evolutionary stages and to assess possible hazards due to their superficial effects.
Intermittent fasting may have some superficial effects on the body, but the only way to fully achieve O'Gallagher's level of fitness euphoria is if you're getting your daily caloric intake delivered on a silver spoon.
