The Effects Monitor after I enchanted myself.
The Effects Monitor, is, by default, located in the upper-left corner of the user interface. It shows every Condition, Hex, Enchantment, Preparation, Form, Skill, Shout, Stance and any other Skill type or Environmental effect currently affecting your character, as well as any applicable Death Penalty or Morale Boost and all other status effects except for exhaustion (which shows up in the Energy bar) and the effects of some bundles.
Hovering the mouse over an icon will display a tooltip describing that particular effect. This description includes, if applicable, the initial duration, any damage your character may take due to this effect, and a brief overview of the effect itself. The remaining duration for the effect is omitted; however, the icon will begin flashing shortly before it wears off.
Control-clicking an icon on the monitor, as with many other user-interface elements, will announce the effect to your party, in the form of I have (effect name) on me!. Members of your party must be familiar with the effect, since there is no way for them to glean additional information from the message itself.
The effect icons displayed on the Monitor are listed left-to-right if the Monitor is closer to the left-hand side of the interface, and right-to-left if the Monitor is closer to the right-hand side of the interface. Icons that would overflow the horizontal space allotted for the Monitor will loop upwards or downwards towards the center of the screen to an additional line.
Effects of the same category will be grouped together, and displayed in the order in which they were applied to your character. This order can have strategic importance, because skills to remove effects generally remove the most recently applied first. Skilled players learn to cover more valued effects with similar skills to prevent their untimely removal.