How to Write Better Essays

2 Dairy products:

(a) yoghurt

(b) butter

(c) milk

(d) cheese

3 Drinks:

(a) wine

(b) gin

With this, the mind has a much simpler job: instead of having to

remember ten items it only has to remember three, knowing that once

these have been recalled the rest will come without a problem. In fact

this is no different from what you would have done normally if you

were, indeed, shopping for these items. It would make obvious sense

to group the items in this way so you could reduce the number of times

you had to move between sections of the supermarket. You would know

there were four things you needed to buy at the vegetable section,

before you moved on to the next, and so on.

Using mnemonics

The only alternative to this is to resort to some form of mnemonics, a

deliberately created device to help you remember. Most of these consist

of phrases created from the first letter of each word you want to

remember. Some children are taught to remember the seven colours

of the rainbow by learning the meaningless phrase: ‘Richard of York

gained battles in vain’ – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and

violet. But the better mnemonics are built on a rhyming or rhythmical

phrase, particularly if this is well-known: a hymn, a popular song, an

advertising jingle, or a well-known poem.

Nevertheless, this is just another way of structuring what you know

• only, rather than create your own structure you borrow one. The least
  effective are those that create meaningless sentences, and therefore
  have no purchase on your own experience. If you’ve never studied
  English medieval history, a phrase concerning Richard of York fighting
  battles might be difficult for you to remember. In these cases you’re
  forced to commit them to memory by repeating them to yourself over
  and over again. This is not only tedious, to say the least, but it also
  ignores the way the mind works naturally and effectively.

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