Insider tip…
…for you students out there.
Like a lot of you who are intelligent enough to be regular readers of these pages :roll:, I find the hardest part of the academic pursuit to be memorization. A lot of courses, most particularly languages, involve heavy amounts of memorization…the grunt work of any course. Frankly, for me it was the scariest thing about entering seminary…at age 47 would I be able to remember the tons of information being thrown an me on a daily basis?
So let me share with you my life saver, my academic “miracle pill.” (Is this beginning to sound like an infomercial?) I can’t recommend highly enough The Memory Book by Harry Lorayne and Jerry Lucas. (yes, the ex New York Nicks star). I remember (see, it works!) from my childhood Mr. Lorayne’s appearances on Johny Carson’s Tonight Show where he would recite the names of everyone in the studio audience from memory.
What The Memory Book teaches is really an ancient system: using visualization and linking to remember vast amounts of information. For example, the ancient Greeks would memorize orations that were several hours long by visualizing a house (they called it an oikos, of course :wink:) with each point of the speech being an object or piece of furniture in a specific room. As they gave the oration, they would simply walk through the house in their minds, and the next point would always be there.
What Lorayne and Lucas have done is to bring these ancient techniques up-to-date, finding fun and creative ways to apply them to modern learning situations. In a nutshell, you learn to turn any fact into a visual cue, sometimes using the sound-alike substituion principle, and then link that to it’s meaning or whatever else it needs to lead to with a little “cartoon” in your mind. The sillier the picture, the better it sticks. One of the wonders of this technique is that using the “link”–finding a way to relate each picture to the next like an animated movie–you can remember a virtually unlimited number of facts in sequence. Using this technique, I memorized the entire quadrant chart of Greek indicative verb endings, well over 50 different ones divided into groups you had to know the name of, in about an hour. A list of 25 vocabulary words takes about 10 minutes…and I can’t forget them if I try!
Since starting class here, I’ve made a number of converts to the system. We all agree that Greek would have been at least 10 times harder without it. So if you’re in the academic rat race, or any profession or hobby where memorization is key, I urge you to check out the above mentioned book.
This concludes the infomercial portion of your blogging day. Opinions expressed in the preceeding post most definitely reflect those of the staff and management of this blog.
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September 4th, 2004 at 11:25 am
Mark, I think this is a great recommendation. I’m going to have to tell my wife, Katie, about this!
September 4th, 2004 at 11:36 am
Merrick:
It truly is amazing how well it works. Once you’ve got the basic techniques down, you’ll use it everywhere.
September 4th, 2004 at 11:38 am
OH, Mark! I’m sorry… I was teaing you!
I do think I’m going to give the book a try, though.
(Hint: my wife’s name is Kristy!)
September 4th, 2004 at 11:43 am
Omygosh….what a gotcha! I didn’t mention that the memory technique, for some unknown reason, does not work with names beginning with “K”!
Of course I know you’re wife’s name is Kristy….just that when you’re reading things you think are familiar, like a friend’s wife’s name, you tend to not see the whole word. A good reminder for studying theological texts this fall when I *think* that I already know what they’re saying!
September 5th, 2004 at 4:29 pm
Great job Merrick. I laughed out loud! Mark, you crack me up. The problem with my memory is that it is like a drunk driving home from a bar. I can’t remember what neighborhood I live in let alone the house! Next time I’m in B & N I’ll check it out. Is it now under the section “Greek Helps”?
September 5th, 2004 at 4:37 pm
No, Jim….Greek will be no help at all
And stop taking those Irish Wiskey-based memory pills!
September 7th, 2004 at 10:32 am
Jim… the “added bonus” of that exchange was (sorry, Mark) that Mark regularly calls my wife Katie. I empathize with Mark on this, however, as I cannot remember people’s names to save me (good thing that’s not the basis for salvation!!!).
September 7th, 2004 at 11:43 am
I was gonna buy the memorization book.. but I forgot to..
September 7th, 2004 at 11:54 am
mark, thanks for the recommendation. i think i’ll pick it up as i start taking my turkish class!
September 7th, 2004 at 1:18 pm
Mark: I will be grabbing that now. Thanks.
As for Irish whisky-based memory pills: I would be on that like white on rice on a paper plate in a glass of milk in a snowstorm.
September 9th, 2004 at 2:41 pm
Mark, your story reminds me of an old encounter I had with mnemonics…
When I was in junior high school I found myself targeted by the administration as one of several ‘highly intelligent miscreants’ whose mischief was thought curable by required participation in an after-school quiz-bowl known as ‘Battle of the Books.’ In Battle of the Books, teams from schools across the county would compete by correctly naming a novel (from a predesignated list) based on trivia questions.
After several weeks of meeting with our volunteer parent advisor, it became evident that none of us had read any of the books. Not one to give up easily, our advisor reread the rules of the competition and discovered that in addition to earning 5 points per trivia question answered correctly, teams could also earn two points for naming the author of the book. Furthermore, teams could steal points from their opponents by correctly naming the authors after their opponents failed to do so.
Thus was a new strategy born. Believing that we could use this technicality to win the tounament without actually reading any of the books, our advisor created mnemonic devices for each of the twenty books. My own list of five still haunts me, some twelve years later. Some are stupid, and some are even worse:
The Goats “Baa, Brock Cole.”
Home Before Dark “You have to cross many bridges to be home before dark; Sue Ellen Bridgers”
Planet of Exile “Ursula le Guin sounds like a name from another planet, a Planet of Exile”
Kon Tiki “Vikings like Thor Heyerdall sailed boats like Kon Tiki”
Dragonflight “Anne McCaffrey is from Scotland and so are dragons.”
Does that book offer any suggestions for purging ones memory???
September 9th, 2004 at 3:17 pm
That’s hysterical Ryan, that you still remember all those! According to Mr. Lorayne in the book, you never really forget anything, but your brain can lose connections to stuff. Generally, there is a mechanism in your brain that decides if something is of short-term or long-term use. However, the intense concentration used to form nemonics will ‘trick’ your brain into filing the memorized item in long-term memory.
For that reason, I still remember the list of ten random words that Lorayne uses as an example of his technique in the beginning of the book: airplane, tree, envelope, earrings, basket, sing, basketball, salami, star, nose. I memorized those 14 years ago when I first read the book and have had absolutely no need for them since….but there they are, probably forever!
September 9th, 2004 at 6:32 pm
[...] 4 How to Memorize Filed under: Meta — Josiah @ 1:32 pm The Sage has a recommendation for those who have a hard time memorizing. It’s called The [...]
September 17th, 2004 at 11:49 pm
RE: comments 1-7… Merrick and Mark I can’t believe you two! “It feels like Sunday…” (er, Mark was that “…Saturday”?) I’m sorry it’s been so long since I checked thce blog. Ironically, I think my dad owns the states/capitals memory book by the same authors. I learned all fifty states and their capitals and can still name nearly all of them over a decade later. I think I will convince David to let me invest in this book for PT school next year, save I’m accepted to the program!
November 10th, 2005 at 7:23 pm
I first read The Memory Book in 1974. I think that is when it was first published. Since then I’ve used it for grocery lists and seminar presentations. Currently I am using the method for word games. Does anyone know what the copyright issues are in using the method for teaching people how to use the method for word-games in paid-for published material? Is the use of the method public domain? If not, who does one contact? PS If anyone on this blog is interested in how I have adapted the method to word-games, I’d be happy to send them a gratis example.
November 10th, 2005 at 7:30 pm
Frank:
I have no idea what the copyright issues would be. I guess you’d have to contact the authors through the publisher.
I taught the method to hundreds of my students over the years, but that was privately in my classroom and not for any profit.
November 12th, 2005 at 1:01 am
Mark - Thanks. Do you ever play Scrabble? If so, I think I have produced something that you would find quite amusting. If you are interested, I will send you a free copy. - Frank
November 12th, 2005 at 1:55 am
Frank…you’ve got mail!