Unless you are one of the rare individuals with a photographic or eidetic memory, you generally have to review what you have learned, sometimes several times, to fully implant the new learning in your memory. Later, if you have been away from the material for awhile, you have to review it again to refresh the memory; you need the repetition to remember.
I have frequently heard it said in classes and workshops that you forget about 70 percent of what you have learned in one day and after a few days, it’s about 90 percent. But you can increase what you remember when you learn using multiple models of encoding, since the encoding uses multiple memory traces.
You’ve probably had some of these experiences more than once:
You’ve seen a great movie, but a few days later, you only have a fuzzy idea of the plot and may not even be able to remember the name of the movie without prompting.
You read a book about current trends and are very impressed with the expertise of the writer. But later that week, when someone asks you what impressed you so much about the writer’s argument, you can’t remember what he said anymore—you only have a general impression that it was a great book.
You go to a classroom lecture and take copious notes, but when you look at your notes a couple of weeks later to study for the exam, you don’t even recognize what you wrote.
You have collected a set of business cards at a networking event. When you look at them several days later, you don’t have the slightest idea who most of the names are and can barely remember what you talked about with the people you do remember.
Such forgetting is common—it’s our way of coping with the flood of information we get each day. This daily deluge includes not only the information you’d like to remember but the things you’d like to forget (like the annoying commercials you watched during the commercial breaks, since you didn’t feel like getting up for a couple of minutes to do something else).
So when you do want to remember something, review and rehearsal can help you solidify the memory in your mind. You can use other recall techniques too, since this process is apart from anything else you do to enter the information in your memory (such as chunking, imagery associations, using trigger words, and the all about me principle). In review, you go over what you have just learned to more firmly encode it in the first place; in rehearsal, you expand on your initial review with a return to the material, so you firmly fix that encoding in place. It’s like what an actor does to learn his or her part in a script—the first reading is like a review; then the actor goes over and over it on his or her own, followed by more extensive rehearsals with a group of other actors. The result: a flawless performance on stage or a minimal number of takes for a film.
The process can be applied to all sorts of memory tasks:
A good way to use the review process is to go over whatever you have written down or collected soon after you have initially recorded or collected this information. If you are giving a speech or presentation, write down an outline for what you plan to say, and review that. When you do your review, add any relevant notes to help trigger your memory later—or use brackets, underlines, or a highlighter to point up what you want to remember. You might also underline or circle certain trigger words.
The advantage of doing this review process sooner rather than later is that you will be more familiar with this material (remember, we forget 90 percent of what we have learned after a few days), so you will better understand what your notes or the materials you have collected are all about. If you have taken extensively detailed notes or written down trigger words at the time (such as noting why you are collecting certain business cards at the time), you can generally skip this initial review step. That’s because your notes or notations will be complete enough so you will know what this is all about later. But otherwise, do this review soon after you have initially taken the notes or collected materials, so you aren’t later puzzled by your notes, collected cards, or other materials you don’t understand.
You obviously don’t want to take the time to do a review for something you are doing for recreation, such as reading a novel. In that case, it doesn’t matter if you forget the information. But for anything you need to know for work or school, take the extra time to do this.
For example, here’s what I’ve been doing for the initial review for classes I’ve been taking in Anthropology, Mass Communications and Organizational/Consumer/Audience Behavior, and Pop Culture and Lifestyles. Since I have learned to take very detailed notes, I usually wait to do the review a few days before any test or discussion about the material. At this time, I bracket what I feel is most important, since this is what I will focus on in the additional review or rehearsal phase.
As for business cards, if I have made notes on the cards, so I know what to do with them, I skip the review process. Otherwise, I go over the cards and either put them into piles of cards with notes on what to do with that group of cards (such as telling my assistant to add their names to a database with a code for their area of interest and source where I have gotten the card) or I write down a notation on that card about what to do with that card for follow-up later.
After you do an initial review, rehearse at least once more with this material to solidify the information in your memory. As you work more often with this process, you will find how much rehearsal you need to do for different types of material. As a general rule, the more material you have, the more you need to rehearse in order to remember it all. If you are giving a speech, presentation, or other kind of performance, you can either gather the content and create an outline for this—or come up with an outline and fill in the content. But in either case, go over the outline so you have that firmly implanted in your mind, since that will provide a trigger for the content in that section. Then, once you have the content firmly in memory, you can add the dramatic flair you want for your final program.
The process is a little bit like what actors have to do in preparing for a scene in a film or a stage play. If the actor only has a few lines, a couple of individual rehearsals may be all that’s needed to encode the lines into memory before the actor goes through the lines in a group rehearsal. But if the actor has a much longer scene to prepare for, more rehearsal is necessary. If it’s a full stage play, particularly a leading part, even more rehearsal time is needed.
It’s best to time your rehearsal for a few days or even a night before you have to know the material. If you are going to be doing more than one rehearsal, it’s best to space it over two or three days, rather than trying to have two rehearsals on the same day. That’s because, as previously discussed, the unconscious processes that occur while you are sleeping help to consolidate what you have learned in your memory.
Once you have determined the number of rehearsals that work for you for different types and amounts of memory tasks, use that as a guide in the future when you have other things to learn and commit to memory. Later, as your memory improves, you may find you need fewer rehearsals. Why? Because you are encoding the material in more detail, particularly if you are combining rehearsal with other memory techniques. Also, as you learn material in a particular field, you are creating a schema in your mind that facilitates learning other material that fits within this schema. (See Chapter 11 for more discussion about creating schemas and scripts.)
For example, after some experimentation, I have found that the following process works well for me in learning new material:
An initial review of my detailed notes and any articles or books a few days before a presentation or exam, which includes bracketing or highlighting the sections of special interest, and underlining important trigger words.
A second reading of these materials, paying special attention to the items I have bracketed and the words I have highlighted.
A third review of the items I have bracketed and the words I have highlighted; this should take place the night before—or even the morning of—the scheduled exam, discussion, presentation, etc.
Find out what works for you by experimenting to determine how much rehearsal you need for different types and amounts of information. Then, if you are presenting or performing this material, add in additional rehearsal time to practice, practice, practice, so you remember all the extra dramatic touches to make your performance shine.
Besides reviewing and rehearsing on your own, you can also engage in these activities with others to further stimulate your ability to remember through the reinforcement and support that others provide. Plus it can be fun to engage in these memory activities with others. This combination of reinforcement, support, and fun is the reason why many students create study groups at school—both to learn the material in the first place or to go over and recall it later.
If you do get together with a group, keep the group small, so everyone gets to participate—three or four people is ideal, and limit the group to no more than five or six people. You can always split into two smaller groups if the group gets too large.
Find a comfortable place you can meet that is free of distractions. Turn off your cell phones; right now, you are unavailable. After brief preliminary socializing is out of the way, focus on what you want to learn and remember. A good approach is to have participants summarize in turn the major points they have gotten from the material. Or have the first person do the summary, and then each person in turn adds something new. After everyone has had a chance to summarize or add to the summary, the first person to start a round of summarizing does a brief recap.
As others speak, take notes if you wish on your material or on a separate sheet of paper to highlight especially important points to remember. Later, you can rehearse the material and what you have learned from the group review or rehearsal on your own. The advantage of the group process is that it adds to the multi-model memory channels, since you are encoding your experience of the group process along with your own performance of the material, in addition to the content of the material.
To increase your encoding and retrieval ability at both the review and rehearsal stage, combine these processes with other memory techniques. This way, when you review and rehearse, you have a more detailed and solid memory, because you are using multiple memory channels. In particular, here’s how these other techniques can help.
Use the all about me principle to think about whatever you are initially encoding into memory to highlight why this is important to you. Then, when you rehearse, you might remind yourself why this is important to you.
Use chunking to group different sections of what you want to remember together, such as if you have identified a series of trigger words in a speech, article, or book chapter. Then, pay attention to these groupings and where different items of information fit as you review and rehearse the material.
Use imagery associations, so as you review and rehearse, you see a picture in your mind to reinforce what you are taking in verbally. Or in some cases, experience yourself in the scene of whatever you are reading or hearing about, which is particularly helpful if you are reading a narrative.
Use a group discussion to further reinforce what you have learned.
Plus use any other memory techniques that are applicable to the material you are trying to remember.
How much review and rehearsal do you need for different things you are learning? Try experimenting with different types of material to find out.
A good way to start is with a short article, chapter in a book, or section of a talk you are going to give. Go over it once for an initial review, making brackets, notes, or underlining trigger words.
Then, imagine that you are describing what you have just reviewed to someone else and, mentally or speaking aloud, state the highlights of this material. After you do this, notice how much you have remembered. Have you been able to remember details? Or do you only recall the vague gist of what the material is about? Briefly write down your reflections about your experience.
Now, do a first rehearsal of this material—or take a similar article, chapter, or section of a talk, and do a review and then a rehearsal. During this rehearsal, as described above, quickly review all the material, but pay particular attention to any of the material you have bracketed, any trigger words, and anything you have noted. After you do this, repeat the imaginary retelling, as described above, to see how much you have remembered. Ask yourself if you have been able to remember details or just the vague gist of what the material is about. Compare your experience with this first rehearsal and your initial review. Did you recall more detail? Briefly write down your reflections about your experience.
Then, do a second rehearsal of this material—or take a similar article, chapter, or section of a talk, and do a review, first rehearsal, and second rehearsal. Use the same process as described above to determine your recall.
Generally, you will find that with each rehearsal, your memory of the material becomes stronger and stronger.
As you rehearse longer or different material, notice how this experience compares to using the process with shorter material. Increase the rehearsal time as needed for longer and more complex material, depending on how well you need to know the details. For example, sometimes you just need to know the general concepts and principles described in an article or chapter; in other cases, you need the details, such as examples or stories illustrating these principles. Adapt how much you have to rehearse as you learn more about your own memory processes. Working with these processes will help you get a better sense of how much rehearsal you need depending on the type of material, its length, and how much detail you need to know.