CONTENTS:

1. Memory And The Importance Of Review

2. Memory - Theories And Processes
3. How To Study Effectively (1)
4. How To Study More Effectively (2)

MEMORY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF

REVIEW

Memory
"We remember what we understand; we understand only what we pay attention to; we pay
attention to what we want." - Edward Bolles

The statement above, made by a specialist in the study of memory, sums up this page on memory
and the philosophy behind much of this web site on study skills.

 We insure more effective learning and memory when what we study and learn matches
with and contributes to our career and educational goals.
 When we know how we learn best in terms of our learning style and preferences and are
able to apply appropriate study techniques, we are better able to attend to, take in, and
process information in various learning situations.
 When we fully understand information (at all cognitive levels), we are better able to
remember information. By using elaboration strategies such as summarizing, questioning,
and using visual organizers, we "deep process" information in a way that assists and
insures understanding. As a result, we are better able to appropriately "file" and to
retrieve information, and thus, assure memory of the information.

How Memory Works

Human memory works on two different levels: short term memory and long term memory.
Short term memory includes what you focus on in the moment, what holds your attention. Most
people can only hold about 7 items of information in short term memory at any given moment
(like a phone number). To learn information so that you can retain and recall it, you must transfer
it from short term to long term memory.

Long term memory includes all the information that you know and can recall. In many ways, it
becomes a part of you. Once information becomes a part of your long term memory, you'll have
access to it for a long time.

There are two ways to move short term memory to long term memory: rote learning and
learning through understanding. Rote learning means learning through repetition, which is
mechanical and requires little understanding (learning multiplication tables). Learning through
understanding involves learning and remembering by understanding the relationships among
ideas and information (remembering main ideas and supporting details from a lecture because
you understand the concepts and relationships between ideas). Both types of learning and
memory are useful and often are used together. For example, in history, you need to relate facts
(like dates) which you memorized by rote to your understanding of historical concepts (like the
Civil War) which you remembered by understanding the information.

How We Forget and the Importance of Review

Four major theories on forgetting include:

1. Fading. According to the fading theory, the trace or mark a memory etches into your
brain is like a path you make in the woods when you continually walk along the same
route. If you don't take that same path, it eventually becomes overgrown until it
disappears. In the same way, facts that you learn are forgotten when you don't review
them.

A famous study on forgetting textbook materials compared the percentage of material

remembered after different intervals of time. The results were as follows:

After 1 day 54% was remembered.

After 7 days 35% was remembered.
After 14 days 21% was remembered.
After 21 days 18% was remembered.
After 28 days 19% was remembered.
After 63 days 17% was remembered.

Remembering what you have heard in lectures is even more difficult to recall because
you are not able to slow down, pause, reflect, or to reread unless you take excellent notes!
In a study on recall after listening to a seminar, students forgot more than 90% of the
points from the lecture after 14 days!
 The conclusions to be made from these studies?

o Without review, most information will be lost from memory.

o The best time to review materials is within a day or two after the material
has been read or presented in lecture.

The best way to study for a quiz or test is to keep the memory fresh on an ongoing
basis. If you wait to review the information till the night before the test (let's say after 28
days), you will have forgotten 81% of the material and will have to study a lot longer to
be sufficiently prepared for the test.

2. Retrieval. According to this theory, a forgotten fact hasn't faded, it has been misplaced in
the "file cabinet" of your mind. Whether the information has disappeared completely, or
has been lost, the result is the same - is has been forgotten.

The key to avoiding retrieval problems is to label and file information correctly. You can
also assist your memory by studying in "meaningful chunks."

3. Interference. This theory is based on the principle of limited space. As you keep adding
new information, a conflict develops between the old and new information over the space
available. The key to avoiding this problem is to look for connections and relationships
between ideas so that they can be "filed together" or combined. Ask yourself, "What do I
already know about this?" or any of the "cognitive questions."

4. Interactive interference. When you are learning a great deal of information at one time,
you tend to remember best what is read or presented first and last. The rest gets lost in the
shuffle. To avoid this problem, study one subject at a time, in meaningful chunks.

Your attitude can also affect how well you learn and remember. You can "shut out"
information if you consider it boring or if you don't like the subject. To avoid this type of
interference, set learning goals before you begin to read or study. Link your study goals
to your long-term career and educational goals. If you have chosen goals that match
your personal strengths and interests, you will be able to get through even the most
difficult and uninteresting classes because they are important steps in helping you to meet
your goals.

The Keys to Remembering

You can learn to remember more effectively if you learn and use the four keys described below.
Each one helps you to enter information into your long term memory.
 1. Choose to remember. Be interested. Pay attention. Want to learn and know. What you
want is an important part of learning. When people are interested and want to learn, they
learn and remember more effectively.

2. Visualize or picture in your mind what you wish to remember. For many people, a
mental picture or visualization is clearer and easier to remember than words. For each
major concept that you want to remember, create a mental picture and then look at it
carefully for a few seconds. Once you've seen it clearly, you'll probably be able to recall
it.

3. Relate the ideas and information you wish to remember to each other and to ideas
and information you already know. When you relate information to other information,
you create a chain of memories which lead to one another. When you label an
information chain or group of ideas, you create a kind of "file" that makes it easy to
locate and remember the information. (See Mnemonic Devices.)

4. Repeat what you wish to learn until you overlearn it. Say it in your own words. Even
though you've already learned something, go over it one more time. Research shows that
the time you spend on overlearning and putting ideas into your own words will pay off by
making recall easier and more complete.

"We remember what we understand; we understand only what we pay attention to; we pay
attention to what we want." - Edward Bolles
 MEMORY - THEORIES AND PROCESSES

Underlying memory improvement are a few basic concepts. Although we will not go into
extensive detail about theories of memory, we will present some of the basic ideas to help you
understand why certain techniques work.

ATTENTION AND SELECTION

The first process of memory is attention. There is much more information in your environment
than you can process at any one time. Thus, you must make choices (conscious and unconscious)
regarding the stimuli to which you will attend. Imagine two students who are driving to Padre
Island, TX for spring break. Both have different plans for how they want to spend their vacation:
one listening to local bands, the other surfing and swimming. They stop to eat at a sidewalk cafe,
where they are approached by a stranger who asks if they know of a surf shop nearby. Assuming
they passed one on the way to the cafe, the chances are that the surfer, but not the friend, would
have remembered seeing it. Had the stranger asked about music clubs, you might find the
opposite scenario. Each one likely attended to what was of interest. We will have more to say
about attention later, but we present the idea here to emphasize the roles attention and selection
play in our memory.

ENCODING

Once something is attended to, it must be encoded to be remembered. Basically, encoding refers
to translating incoming information into a mental representation that can be stored in memory.
You can encode the same information in a number of different ways. For example, you can
encode information according to its sound (acoustic code), what it looks like (visual code), or
what it means (semantic code). Suppose, for example, that you are trying to remember these
three types of encoding from your notes. You might say each of the terms aloud and encode the
sounds of the words (acoustic), you might see the three types of encoding on your page and
visualize the way the words look (visual), or you might think about the meanings of each of the
terms (semantic).

How does encoding apply to memory? Well, the way you encode information may affect what
you remember and how you recall it later. If you encoded the three things visually or
acoustically, but not semantically, you may be able to list them during a test, but you may have
difficulty recalling what each term means. If you encoded them only semantically, you might be
able to explain what they mean but have difficulty remembering the order in which they were
listed on the page.
You may be able to remember information best if you use techniques (while retrieving the
information) that are related to the way you encoded it. For example, if you encoded something
visually, you will be able to recall it most easily by drawing on visual cues. You will find that
many of the memory techniques discussed in this section are designed to help you encode the
information in different ways.

STORAGE

Storage is the process of holding information in your memory. A distinction is often made
between short-term and long-term memory. Short-term memory is just that, brief and transient.
Think about looking up a new phone number in the phone book and making a call. You may
remember it long enough to make the call, but do not recall it later. This is your short-term
memory, which can hold a small amount of information for a short period of time. Once you stop
attending to the number, perhaps after you make the call and move on to another task, you are
likely to forget it. In order to remember the number for a longer period of time (and after
attending to other things), you would need to store it in your long-term memory.

The transfer of information from short- to long-term memory can be achieved in many ways.
Simply repeating the information can help if it's repeated enough times. For example, frequently
called phone numbers are remembered because you have used (repeated) the number many
times. Although simply repeating, or practicing, something can help move it into long-term
memory, another strategy for transferring information is to think about it deeply. That is,
elaborate on the information, drawing connections between what you are trying to remember
and the other things with which you are already familiar. You might learn that telephone number
quicker, for example, if you notice that it includes the dates of your friend's birthday, the
numbers on your license plate, or some other familiar number pattern.

RETRIEVAL

Retrieval is the process of actually remembering something when you want to. If you think about
tip-of-the-tongue experiences, when you know a word or name but just can't seem to recall it,
you will understand how retrieval is different from storage. In terms of memory improvement, it
can help to understand how the retrieval process relates to encoding and storage. Consider the
relationship between retrieval and encoding. If you encoded something visually, but are trying to
retrieve it acoustically, you will have difficulty remembering. Like encoding, information can be
retrieved through visualizing it, thinking about the meaning, or imagining the sound, etc. The
more ways information has been encoded, the more ways there are for retrieving it. Imagine that
you are taking a test in which you are given a definition and asked to recall the word it describes.
You may recall the page of your notes that the word was on and visualize the word, or you might
say the definition to yourself and remember yourself repeating the word. Thus, memory is aided
by encoding and retrieving information in multiple ways.
Retrieval relates to storage as well. Obviously the memory has to be stored in order for you to
retrieve it, but knowing how it was stored can help. This is where elaboration and processing
come in. When attempting to retrieve information, it helps to think about related ideas. For
example, you are trying to remember a chemistry formula during an exam. Although you are
able to visualize the page of your chemistry notes, you cannot recall the exact formula. You do
remember, however, that this same formula was used in the biology class you took last semester.
As you think about that class, you are able to recall the formula. This is one reason why
intentionally organizing information in your memory when you are learning it helps you recall it
later.

SUMMARY

Attention ----> Encoding ----> Storage ----> Retrieval

Here are the steps of memory discussed thus far. First, you select the information to which you
will attend. You then code the information for storage (where it can be practiced and processed
more deeply). Later, when needed, information is retrieved by using a search strategy that
parallels how the information was coded and stored.

FORGETTING

Although information can be stored in long-term memory for extended periods of time, "memory
decay" does take place. In other words, we can forget what we learn. In fact, we forget things
quickest shortly after we learn them. This has two implications in terms of improving our
memory. First, as disheartening as it is, you will often learn a great deal more than you can retain
in the long run. But, before you lose heart entirely, keep in mind that the memories can be
retained with a little effort. So, the second implication for improving memory involves
maintaining memories with the least amount of effort. In order to retain information in
memory, you must practice, think about, and sometimes relearn things. Every time you
practice and relearn the information, you are reinforcing it in your memory. Taking a few
moments to do frequent, but brief, reviews will save you time by helping you retain what you
have learned. For example, it's a good idea to make rehearsal part of your reading and note-
taking regimen. When you complete a reading assignment or a note-taking session, take a few
minutes to rehearse the material as a way of moving the information from short-term to long-
term memory. Not that this practice alone is sufficient to prepare for most test, but it will
enhance your understanding and recall of the material, facilitating serious study.
 HOW TO STUDY EFFECTIVELY (1)
By Kurt Schwengel, eHow Contributor

Finding a strategy for studying effectively can make all the difference, whether you are helping yourself or someone else.
Regardless of your age or the subject at hand, it is crucial to build study habits that make the most of your time.

Instructions
o 1
Designate a place for studying. You should have a place set aside just for studying, where
it is quiet and away from distractions. Make this area comfortable, as well as useful, by
preparing the space with items you need to do your studying. You don't want to disrupt
your study time by getting up to search for things you need.
o 2
Get plenty of sleep. Sleep deprivation can affect your memory, making it difficult to
retain what you have studied.

o 3
Make a fixed schedule. Schedule your study time for a certain time of the day and stick to
it. After a while, it will become a routine.
o 4
Take a break from your studies every 30 to 40 minutes to get something to drink or just to
stretch your legs. This should be a short break, just a few minutes so that you don't ruin
your concentration and get sidetracked.
o 5
Find a study partner. Often times you can get off-course studying on your own, but a
partner can help you keep on track, as well as offer tips and ideas that you may not have
thought of on your own.
o 6
Set definite goals. Decide what you need to study on that particular day and set a goal of
how much you will try to cover. If you don't get through it all in the time you allotted,
rethink how much time each subject will take and adjust your goals accordingly.

Tips & Warnings

 Having a good exercise routine and a healthy diet can also improve your memory.

 Study groups can be a great help to people who have a hard time concentrating on their
own.
 HOW TO STUDY MORE EFFECTIVELY (2)

Many times the key to educational success begins with a student's ability to study effectively. This how to guide
emphasizes three key concepts that can be used to improve your studying abilities and eventually your grades.

Instructions:
o 1
Limit Distractions.

A Bad Plan:
I know that on occasions, I've gone to the local coffee shop to try and study for my next
exam. They have comfortable tables and chairs, wireless internet and all the coffee you
can drink. I thought it was a good idea at the time, but I was soon very distracted and was
not even able to study. What went wrong? First, I had a couple of cups of that coffee,
which made me jittery. Then, with the easy access to wireless high speed internet, I got
distracted checking stock quotes and the news. Finally, those comfortable chairs and
tables weren't so comfortable after two or three hours. Plus, add in the constant buzz of
people and traffic in and out and the whole place became a study nightmare.

A Good Plan:
A better plan is to find a nice comfortable spot at home. The best place is away from the
kids, the TV, the internet and all of the other distractions of daily life. Go behind closed
doors. Meet your needs. Use the bathroom before you begin. Grab a snack and a glass of
water. Bring everything that you might need for the next few hours with you. Study in an
environment that you can control. Start your study time by taking a few minutes to really
think about what you need to learn and focus on getting your studying done and out of
the way.
 o 2
Create a Study Routine.

There are two keys to creating an effective study routine. The first key is time
management. Learning the skill of effective time management is a real asset to a student.
With so many things going on in our busy lives these days, failure to manage your
limited study time in an efficient and effective manner can kill your chances of doing
well in school. Keep in mind that you will need two to three hours of study time for every
hour that you spend in class per week and once that time has passed you by, no amount of
cramming is going to help. Try to divide the study "work" that you need to do into
manageable parts and tackle it a little each day. It also helps if you set aside a certain
window of time each day, early morning works for me, to concentrate on your studies.
Use this same schedule every day and your routine will only grow stronger over time.
The second key is determining isolation versus participation. It helps to figure out if you
study and learn better as an individual or as part of a study group. If you are the type of
person that gets easily sidetracked when in a group, try studying alone one time and see if
that improves your understanding of the material. Many times, study groups, especially
those with more than two or three people, get off track with multiple conversations going
on at once and disruptive behaviors from some members.

o 3
Stay Organized.

Improving organization can be one of the easiest and most effective ways of improving
your ability to study more effectively. If you are disorganized, you spend a lot of your
study time trying to get your notes in order, find page numbers in the book, and make
sense of all the information that you are dealing with. It's much easier to consolidate your
notes, with all of the vital study information included, into one concise notebook or flash
drive, that is easy to access and use. This decreases the time required for you to study and
makes more effective use of your precious time and limited studying opportunities.

Tips & Warnings

 Avoid eating heavy meals at least two hours before studying. Research shows that after
eating a large meal, your blood flow is diverted to your gastrointestinal tract to aid digestion
and away from your brain where you need it while studying.
 Avoid excessive caffeine or sugar intake that can affect your concentration when you are
trying to study and retain information.