One way to remember a list of things is to use a mnemonic (memory) device. There are several ways to do this.
1) Make an acronym.
If you have a list of things to remember, use their first letters to make a word–or a pseudo-word.
For example, FACE gives you the names of the notes between the lines on a musical staff.
Some medical care providers use CAGE for alcohol-use screening:
1. Have you ever felt it necessary to CUT DOWN on your drinking?
2. Has anyone ever told you they were ANNOYED by your drinking?
3. Have you ever felt GUILTY about your drinking?
4. Have you ever felt the need to have a drink in the morning for an EYE OPENER?An Economics example is TANSTAAFL: There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
2) Create a sentence from the first letters of the things in your list.
For example, to remember the (formerly) nine planets in order from the sun (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto): My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles. Or: My very excellent memory just served up nine planets.
Another that is widely used is “Every Good Boy Deserves Favor” for the musical notes that go on the lines in the music staff.
Tips on mnemonics:
The goal is to make it memorable. How to do this?
- Make it rhyme.
- Make it musical. You learned the alphabet by learning that little song that you still do when you’re reciting the alphabet.
- Make it funny/surprising. (In the “planets” sentence, what would be better than pickles?)
- Use a pun.
- Create a vivid, graphic and/or improbable image that jolts the mind. (The Pope riding a jet ski?)
- Perhaps use something shocking! Some of the best-known mnemonics in medicine are quite bawdy or refer to bodily functions/excretions.
- Keep it simple/short. It shouldn’t be more complicated to remember than the list itself!
By the way, Mnemosyne was the Greek goddess of memory, Her namesake, mnemonics (pronounced ni-MON-iks), simply means “memory aid”.
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I didn’t know that about the goddess and all.
Thanks for that!
Pam Hoffman
http://seminarlist.blogspot.com
Associations helped me in college. I would associate a song with something I needed to remember for exams. It worked wonders.