Comments on: How to Memorize Verbatim Text

By: Jules

Jules — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:08:54 +0000

WOW – this really helped me. I can’t believe I found this. SO helpful. THANK YOU!!!

By: Taylor

Taylor — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:46:30 +0000

I had to memerize this one poem to me 3 days. It takes 67 minutes to say but I did it.
Steps
1.read over a stanza 5 times
2.write out the poem 5 times
3.Then say each word slowly, but not to slow
Then repeat the steps 3 times then bravo your down!

By: Sasha

Sasha — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:14:21 +0000

Wow! I have a play to learn, and despite the fact that I only read it through once before I typed it in, I was able to recall almost all my lines! I would reccommend this to anyone, it should be publicised a little more, it’s a great technique! It’s very versatile and anyone could use it! Thankyou so much!

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:11:17 +0000

This is a great technique!

I’ve combined your technique with a few others, and put together a free web app for memorizing pieces word for word called Verbatim:

http://members.cox.net/astonishment/iphone/webapps/verbatim/

It runs on the iPhone, iPod Touch, Palm Pre, Android devices, and WebKit-based browsers (such as Safari and Google Chrome).

I’ve also linked this article in the manual under “related resources”.

By: JB

JB — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:13:18 +0000

Mark:
Great site. In your learned opinion, would there be a more effective or more efficient way of memorizing long lists of phrases (verbatim) but also to incorporate little nuances and “wrinkles” to each phrase and how each phrase would be applied (not verbatim)? For example, to memorize verbatim a list of elements(phrases) for a particular item, but also to memorize (not necessarily verbatim) when each such element/phrase would apply or when there are exceptions to each element/phrase. This is in the context of me trying to study for the Bar Exam. Some things need to be memorized verbatim, while each item/phrase in the list of, say 5-10 short items/phrases would have sub-items/phrases that are contextual in nature (i.e., that a given item/phrase only applies in certain situations, who this applies to, or other general considerations such as if one of the verbatim items is or is not present within a given set of facts or a given situation, then one must look at something completely different like a separate list of items memorized verbatim, etc.,). I think the my circumstances may be distinguishable just enough from the situation you’ve highlighted in the above article so as to warrant a slight modification of approach, but I’d love to know if you think it does or not. Kindly awaiting your expert advice or opinion re: this situation.

By: Bryan Davis

Bryan Davis — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:21:20 +0000

I am memorizing the lyrics(German) and the translation, this seems to work well for the lyrics, I am trying to incorporate this into memorizing the translation. Creating Flash card would be too cumbersome> any ideas?

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 12:51:42 +0000

@Ghostwoods – I’m glad you like the system. Jeff’s program has some additional capabilities when it comes to testing yourself that would be very handy to some people. Whether it is worth the small fee he is charging probably has more to do with how much you need to memorize and how much your time is worth, but I would hardly call $10 exploitative.

By: Ghostwoods

Ghostwoods — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:37:33 +0000

Mark, this is a truly brilliant technique. I often need to memorize passages of historic text verbatim, and it has always been a nightmare, even with the kind of mnemonic memory techniques the Prof mentioned above.

To explain that a little by the way, the idea is that through training, you learn shortcut associations for each number from 1-100 and each letter (and, if you want to take part in memory tournament *shudder* each card in a deck) with a specific graphic image. For instance, in the system I use, 1 is a Tie, 2 is Noah, 3 is Mother, and so on.

Then when you need to memorise something, you break it into conceptual chunks, and associate each chunk its own graphic mental image. The pre-memorised shortcuts can help a lot in some cases, and not at all in others.

Once you have your graphic visualisations, you piece them together into a mental story — the stranger, more striking, more obscene, whatever the better.

So “four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent” could be a big football-stadium scoreboard made of Rye (the token for 4). A godzilla-sized cow (for 7) then takes a bite out of the scoreboard. Then maybe my father could kick the cow (now poodle-sized) off into the distance, and, I dunno, squat down and give birth onto America.

Not very nice, I admit — I write horror for a living, heh — but certainly memorable.

It’s a system that works very well, but as you can see, it is also very laborious. It’s pretty damn good for shopping lists and stuff like that, though.

Anyway. Thanks again for this great technique.

Oh and also, people, don’t buy Jeff’s exploitative cash-in tool directly above this comment. Please, bookmark this page. If you really don’t want to do that, then to quote Stephen Downes above:

“This is a very simple bit of Javascript code, based on a one-line regular expression, and nobody should be charging $10 for something like this. Go here:

http://www.downes.ca/memorization.htm

and view the source. Better yet, save a copy to your desktop and open it there.”

By: Jeff Miles

Jeff Miles — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 04:24:37 +0000

For those who are interested, the UPurMEMORY tool that I wrote for Windows has been updated to work with 64-bit Windows Operating Systems. You can find it here: http://www.twomilessolutions.com/upurmemory

By: TN Lizzie

TN Lizzie — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 03:21:36 +0000

Wow! Wow! Wow!

My 14yo is studying 1,507 Bible verses for Bible Bee 2009, and we found you through http://www.scripture-memory-support.org/prompt.html !

This is going to be such a blessing as we head into the last few weeks before competition on Sept. 12.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

We will spread the word, so I hope we don’t close down your site here! b

By: Guy

Guy — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:02:01 +0000

Thanks, know the feeling. I am looking forward to giving the system a try

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:44:59 +0000

It should be back. Sorry about that Wordpress likes to eat the tool.

By: Guy

Guy — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:53:53 +0000

Where has the tool gone?

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Fri, 22 May 2009 18:05:24 +0000

@Ashley – Well that was kind of the idea–make something easy to use without going through all the trouble to do it with something else. I use to do it by hand on paper. It wasn’t that bad and it makes you think about each letter, but it is easy to make a mistake and that kind of defeats the purpose.

By: Ashley

Ashley — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:35:10 +0000

I’ll try it, but I might just stick to this site