Study Skills Counselling - Mnemonics
HOW TO GUIDE TO MNEMONICS
A mnemonic is a tool designed to enhance your ability to learn and remember
information. University students are faced with learning large quantities
of information that they must retrieve from their memories during tests.
The Mnemonics listed below will assist with this process.
- Acronyms or New Words - Acronyms are created by taking
the first letter of words and creating a new word out of them. For example,
the World Health Organization is often referred to as WHO.
A common acronyms from science is Roy G. Biv for the colours
of the visible spectrum (Red,
Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet).
You can create your own acronyms by taking the first letters of to be remembered
words. HOMES is
the acronym for the Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario Michigan,
Erie, Superior.
If the words do not have to be learned in order you can rearrange the letters
to more closely approximate the sound of a word. For example if you were
trying to learn the following words: Taiwan, Hong
Kong, China, India and
Macao you could rearrange their order and use their initial
letters to spell MITCH.
- Acrostics or Creative Sentences - Acrostics are created
by taking letters (initial or stand alone) and creating a memorable sentence
from them. Most beginning music students learn the expression “every good boy
deserves fudge” in order to remember
the lines of the treble clef staff. Another way to remember Taiwan,
Hong Kong, China, India and Macao would
be to create an acrostic. For example, Mother hates to iron cabbage
uses the first later of each word to create a very vivid picture. The fact
that we do not iron cabbage makes the sentence easier to remember. David
Ellis, author of Becoming a Master Student, uses the following
phrase to remember the nine stages of Muscle Reading: Pry out questions. Root
up answers. Recite, review
and review again. The nine stages are: preview,
outline, question, read, underline, answer, recite, review and review
again.
- The Method of Loci - The method of the loci is one of
the oldest memory techniques. It is excellent for trying to remember a
list in order. The method works by placing words/objects in locations that
you often visit. The most common location used is one’s home. For
example, if you were trying to memorize the Periodical Table of Elements
one could create the following vivid story set in your house
You pull into your driveway and see a dragon. You get out of the car and say “Hi Dragon.” (Hydrogen). You open your garage door and your dog Ian jumps on you. You say “Heel Ian!” (Helium). He begins to speak to you and you realize he has a lisp. “ I didn’t know you had a lisp, Ian.” (Lithium) You step into your hallway with Ian and he begins to look at a bear rolling on the floor in obvious agony. “ I think that bear is ill, Ian.” (Beryllium) You go in the living room and turn on the television. A politician who you consider a bore is talking on and on and on. (Boron) You leave and go into the kitchen and spy a packet of pasta on the table. You remember that your doctor said you need additional carbohydrates or as he put it” You need to put the carb on!” (Carbon)
I think you get the idea. The method of the loci works best when the objects are placed in oft visited places and are portrayed in a vivid manner.
- Rhymes and Songs -
We can often remember information better if we can set the idea in rhyme
or song. People often remember the date of Christopher Columbus voyage
with the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria by reciting “In
fourteen hundred and ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” The
number of days in each month is remembered in the following verse:
Thirty days, hath September, April, June
and November. All the rest have thirty-one, except February which
has twenty-eight, except in a leap year when it has twenty- nine.
In school many of us learned the “rule” i before
e except after c. Younger children learn the
letters of the alphabet through song and the number of days in
each month through rhyme.
And you thought singing was just for the shower!
- Create a Story - Important information can be made vivid
by telling a story. It is also a good way to turn “meaningless” information
into meaningful information. Imagine you wanted to memorize pi to twenty
digits. 3.1415926535897932384 Stare at the number for
1 minute. Now close the pamphlet and try to write this number from memory.
How did you do? Let’s try reading this story and see if it increases your ability to recall the number.
3 men are sitting around a table. The youngest is 14, the next one is 15 and the oldest is 92. On the table is a 6 pack of pop. They share a can leaving 5 cans. The youngest says that he is so thirsty he could drink 3 more cans. The other boy, not be outdone, says he could drink the remaining 5 cans. The old man, tired of this bragging, does some arithmetic in his head and pronounces that he could drink 8 cans of pop. They are watching a basketball game. The score is 97 to 93 with 2:38 left in the game, a 4 point lead.
Read the story three times. Now close the pamphlet and try reconstructing the number by remembering the story. With a little practice, you will be able to astound your friends with your memory feats.