<p>This work analytically formulates the effective stiffness of arbitrarily misaligned short fiber reinforced composite (SFRC) by two approaches based on orientation distribution functions (ODF) and orientation tensors (OT) of the fibers, respectively. It is found that the original OT approach in the literature would yield unreasonable effective stiffness of the SFRC with anisotropic matrix, which could be modified by introducing an auxiliary fiber volume fraction that is related to the interactions between the fibers and matrix. By validating with experimental results of the SFRC with isotropic matrix, the modified OT approach could yield better agreement than the original OT approach. More importantly, for the SFRC with anisotropic matrix, the unreasonable prediction of the original OT approach is rectified in the modified OT approach by comparing with finite element results.</p>