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Learn by heart by spacing out repetitions
Learning is had by cramming. Cramming counteracts forgetting. There is some drill
involved, and what is to be learnt by heart, has to be tackled - but not furiously. One of
the secrets is repetition. Another is calm. A third is the help that glad interest gives
almost automatically.
Such facets of our study work may be studied further. For example, studies have
shown that about 80% of the study time should be repetition work: that yields better results
[see Ams, His] One reason for repeating the essence of what you have
studied is that mamory may fail you later. Both interest, overlearning (a technical term)
and repeating things may help. How do do it? By repeating wisely and well.
When you space out your repetitions according to plan, you gain more by less
efforts, and it helps in the long run. We give such hints on other pages.
Base your learning on what helps. In some waters (terrains) what you need first and
foremost, is to remember good points. If so, be allied with knowledge of how memory works.
There are good methods.
Good acronyms help down memory lane - try it
Acronyms (words made of letters from other words) should be worth studying, for (a)
they condense highly useful information in a handy manner and make it quite easy to get to
it again. Examples:
Radar: radio detecting and ranging (made up in 1941)
Nato: North Atlantic Treaty Organization (signed on April 4, 1949 and
entered into force on August 24, 1949)
Laser: light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (made up in
1960)
If you put yourself into it, you may find out more about each, the radar and
laser.
Learn the secrets of O TAKQ-SPIR
O TAKQ-SPIR is the "shorthand" that refers to a basic study technique that
may bring real help. [LINK]
If you learn it, you have a grasp of a fit, neat and much all-round study
technique, and will know what steps are involved, who comes first, and then you won't
deceive yourself or anyone else into thinking you have studied well if you have not.
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Nidaros Cathedral. Click on the image to find O TAKQ-SPIR described ...
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What does O TAKQ-SPIR mean? The acronym surely carries good meaning in
Norwegian: 'Tak' means roof and 'spir' is a steeple, a spire.
Learn to visualise. Mind images is what the bulk of learning is made up of. We can
remember astoundingly much through mental images. Think that you stand beside the cathedral
in Trondheim and look up. Because you bend your neck, the first word becomes 'takq' - it's a
little joke.
Have a look at the picture of a landmark building in a Norwegian university town. It
has a roof and a spire - O TAKQ-SPIR. The basic study technique that is shown through
it, is described here: [LINK]
First try to learn the acronym that sums up the most important parts of what you
study. Then link up to its letters one by one. In just one day you may have learnt top
things (top subjects) without much cramming. That's when the fun begins: you are ready to
expand your learning. Adjoin the key phrase(s) or key words and learn them well. Then you
may wake up one morning and remember it all. That means you have gained mastery of
elementals, probably.
When you master basic parts of what you're into, you may try to make money, if you
adjust to rulers.
What we give, is great help to come a long way in getting to grips with the
essentials, the bare bones of subjects. Then you are on your own.
First remember things, then seeing on top of that
You see, the memory phrase (acronym) is like a handle fixed to something bigger. It
is much easier to remember the big subject if you have a well organised handle to catch and
hold on to it by. That's why we present these teachings. They may help both students and
youngsters into better performance.
Learning is had down memory lane in the first place. The other aspects of knowing
and accomplishing come on top of recall, ie memory.
Have a go. You may find this training funny. And you may be surprised at how easy it
is to remember through handy helpers.
This study is help for holding better parts of a study well in mind in mind. The acronyms we
go into below, if well remembered, give surveying help and assist summary making. Most
important, they serve the memory in a life and can do the same on exams. They may assist or
even bring confidence by letting you know you are not totally unprepared.
Literary study made really easy
- Make not your sail too big for the ballast. (Proverb).
- Stretch your arm no further than your sleeve will reach. (Proverb)
The proverbs indicate that to succeed when you comment, analyse, expose or interpret a text,
sane moderation could be welcome. It's often wise to go for that, and not overstretch in any
major way, at least.
- He who would search for pearls, must dive below. (John Dryden, 1631-1700)
On the other hand, you may have to go further and explore things a bit or a lot on your own.
There may be dangers in that. Divers could have to withstand more pressure than others. It
depends on the agreements you get, perhaps.
- There are more ways to the wood than one. (Proverb)
This saying is about method. After all, there may be more than just one. It should be good
to bear that in mind, to avoid getting one-sided or biased around the bend.
Below is great help for generalised literary study, rooted in a nice little primer
for university students and perhaps some others too [See Gls]. The
acronyms that are found, have been added. They are based on findings of how memory works,
among other things. Good use of them could make learning and expressing easier and more fun.
Good luck with that.
AIR-BOC is for approaching a text or film at first, and tentatively. According to this, you
may approach and study a text somewhat tentatively in relation to such as:
| A |
Author | Or maker: It's the source of some form of
intellectual or creative work. |
| I |
Identity | Study and express things about the work with
a view to its own inherent identity, ie the work as an entity in itself, in its own
right. |
| R |
Readers | Who were/are they? How did/do they respond?
Another angle: "Popular literature no longer springs from the people; it is handed to them."
[Britannica Online]. But significant readers evolve ideas on top of thoughtful
reading. You may study them. |
| — | | |
| B |
Background | Judge it as it is. And reflect if it
pleases, that a work's background may reflect or show both stances and good themes in
itself. |
| O | Other
literature | You may check that up. Things to consider:
language, national origin, historical period, genre, and subject matter with similar works,
perhaps, or other outputs by the same maker. |
| C | Criticism,
critics | Past and present. Seminal idea: "The English
critics ... largely confined themselves to acknowledged masterpieces and general ideas."
[Britannica Online] |
The letters of the acronym AIR-BOC need to be read, understood and next remembered.
Overlearning helps it, and memorisations. These two work together. Good acronym 'pegs' like
this one can and should make learning and express writing more fun. And you should memorise
them so well that they can last a life-time. It's easy once you know how.
Good acronyms belong to memory items that can serve as handles: they may afford
hard, good grips, ie mastery of basic presentation. That's what we're into on this
page.
Then, one of these days or preferably on "the next exam" you may draw on them to
check that you have covered basic aspects. It can be great help.
TO DELIVER criticism or critique, pay attention to and appraise
(estimate the value or quality of) things like:
| A | Artistic
whole | Think of what makes the text an artistic whole
if you can. Vent some opinions if you care. |
| T |
Theme | Think up the theme or themes that are used.
Themes can be subjects or topics of discourse or of artistic representation, and concerns.
Ask: "What is it about"? Sum it up and you may arrive at themes. |
| R | Restricted
criticism | Book criticism, text criticism: It may be
very good for the inexperienced writer or critic to restrict (limit) his or her criticism to
the work at hand, the work itself. |
| I | Intention
of author | An authors expressed intentions may be
interesting, but above that is how the text or work actually works on readers. That may be
different, (a) as author intentions may not be realised in full or halfway or less; and (b)
one may expect different outlooks from different readers. We should allow for
that. |
| — | | |
| D: |
Describe | Describe well so as to infer or go into
meanings that are thought much of. You could do well to focus on the whole product and the
main, central and salient parts, if any. |
| A: | Analyse
the story | When you analyse things, first think How
well is it narrated? How is the content handled? Well enough? Those questions may open
up things for you. Try to tell significant things from the content and elucidate well - fine
passages too. Techniques of narration belong to things you should look into. Also, you could
find what is called broad criticism helpful, or you may restrict your stuff to the text
itself. |
| I: |
Illuminate somewhat | - if you can or dare. There may be
roles, structures, and meanings you may want to search. Illuminate through the use of
good concepts and samples. A text may be more broadly illuminated through inferred
meanings on top of that again. |
| D: | Dear, oh
dear | "Dear" - what is in the work of costly value,
perhaps. We would not look too much into bygones, but others prefer it differently. Try to
sort out what's not cheap, but nice and sweet-looking instead. To give vent to plausible
surprises, annoyance etc may be well too. |
Welcome or even dear criticism links up the parts of criticism to the whole somehow, and
attains a fine organic wholeness on its own, in its own right. Some may also gain an
artistic presentation in so doing. It depends on what is welcome and called for, among other
things. You should play safe unless explorations and deviations are very welcome - that's in
the real world.
To criticise or bring critique can be done on many levels and through a lot of
angles. Before you form a judgement (evaluation), analyse and assess to avoid blunders and
scapegoating. This implies you are to handle important facets of the content and perhaps
language too - it depends. There are settings where an impressionistic criticism may be
called for. That means you take your impressions as a base. There are others where the
author's intentions are in focus, and so on. Bear in mind:
"What the author actually did counts, maybe not what he tried to do."
You could try to get to a point of view that helps you to illuminate the form (how
the text is written), the setting and important themes. You may vent some opinions after you
have built such a platform. Vent some opinions as to the artistic wholeness, for
example.
There are many other sides to a good presentation than what these pointers tell.
Bear that in mind.
There are other elements to go into than the ones below, but we have sought to make a fair
key selection, all in all. And remember that the listing may be expanded. You or a fictional
character may be characterised. In fiction it may be through elements like these:
| S |
Statements | Author statements that appear particular
and outstanding. |
| T | Towering
traits and thoughts: | Search for towering character
traits involved in (eg. beautiful) appearance, practical successes, skills, and damages.
Also: predominant mental positions or thoughts, the arguments and claims held. |
| E |
Externals | Externals may include one's possessions and
the like. |
| R |
Revelation | This refers to direct revelation. It's an
author's devise where he informs us "how it is" straight away. |
| N | Nipple
(added) | A nipple sticks out or has that potentiality;
it may be covered for a while, waiting for intimate deals etc. One should try to go into
"things of nipples" figuratively. |
| | | |
| O | Others | The reactions of others as they are
expressed, is a useful devise. Questioning could ease your thought in the matter; ask: "How,
where, when, why, when and who react? And how far?" |
| S |
Speech | The exceptional may be looked at first. Speech
is a way of characterising that employs things like dialect, defects and shortcomings.
Author's misuse of speech may be looked on as mean or low if it raids worth, and maybe too
cheap to be of real life value. After all, Jesus spoke a dialect, Aramaic, they
say. |
| C |
Confidant? | Is there a confidant or confidante through
which one is characterised? |
| A |
Action | Actions or functioning speak louder than
words. There is good and bad functioning. It's often like that. |
| R | Riding
activities and routines | A riding activity includes
routines; they often take place in the humdrum. Many don't aspire higher, many don't express
over and above it - over works and drills done routinely. |
Finally, to use this peg system, one has to get well-informed about individual works too.
And for reliable character descriptions in real life, being well-informed is also
needed. Psychology may focus on other facets too.
We find that characters may be marked by voluntary actions or assembled routines
which they may find themselves fixed in. Such hallmarks may be more valid than airy or
good-looking statements brought about.
Texts may be novels, short stories, dramas, poems and blends among them. Below is a
menomonic phrase and key-words to it. If you apply yourself to the strong points and learn
them better and better in time, you could end up wiser in many ways.
SKIP LIR, VIS MEA
SOME KNOWLEDGE of Celtic myth and Latin will help:
The Poseidon of the [ancient Celtic] Tuatha De Danaan Pantheon was called Lir [Lyr],
but we hear little of him in comparison with his famous son, Manannin, the greatest and most
popular of his many children. [Charles Squire, Mythology of the Celtic people, p
60]
Lir . . . appears in two distinct forms. In the first he is a vast, impersonal
presence commensurate with the sea; in fact, the Greek Oceanus. In the second, he is a
separate person dwelling invisibly on Slieve Fuad," in Armagh. We hear little of him in
Irish legend, where the attributes of the sea-god are mostly conferred on his son, Mananan.
[T. Rolleston: Myths and Legends of the Celts]
The following tale is to see to that the name Lir is easily recalled:
The Children of Lir
LIR, THE father of the sea-god, had married two sisters in succession. The second of
them was named Aoife. [Pronounced "Eefa"] She was childless, but the former wife of Lir had
left him four children. Lir loved them so intensely that the step-mother became jealous. In
the end she resolved to destroy them.
Aoife went on a journey to a neighbouring Danaan king, Bov the Red, and took the
four children with her. When she arrived at a lonely place by Lake Derryvaragh in Westmeath,
she ordered her attendants to slay the children. They refused, and rebuked her. Then she
resolved to do it herself; but she could not bring herself to do it. Instead of killing the
children she changed them into four white swans, and laid on them a curse:
"Three hundred years you are to spend on the waters of Lake Derryvaragh, three
hundred on the Straits of Moyle (between Ireland and Scotland), and three hundred on the
Atlantic by Erris and Inishglory. After that, "when the woman of the South is mated with
the man of the North," this evil spell will end."
When the children failed to arrive with Aoife at the palace of Bov what she had done
was discovered, and Bov changed her into "a demon of the air." She flieed forth shrieking,
and was heard of no more.
Lir and Bov sought out the swan-children, and found that they had both human speech
and could make wonderful music. From all parts of the island companies of the Danaan folk
went to Lake Derryvaragh to hear their wondrous music and talk with the four swans. During
that time a great peace and gentleness reigned in the whole countryside.
At last it was time for the swan-children to leave the fellowship of their kind and
move to the wild cliffs on the rough sea of the northern coast. Here they knew the
loneliness, cold, and storm. Forbidden to land, their feathers froze to the rocks in the
winter nights, and they were often buffeted and driven apart by storms. Fionuala
sang:
Cruel Aoife
Played her magic on us,
And drove us out on the water -
Four
wonderful snow-white swans.
Three sons and a single daughter,
In clefts of the cold rocks dwelling,
The
hard rocks, cruel to mortals -
We are full of keening to-night."
Fionuala, the eldest of the four, took the lead in all their doings, mothered the younger
children most tenderly, and wrapped her plumage round them on nights of frost.
At last the time came to enter on the third and last period set for them. They took
flight for the western shores of Mayo. Here too they suffered much hardship; but a young
farmer named on the shores of Erris Bay, found out who and what the swans were, and became
their friend. They told their story to him, and through him it is supposed to have been
preserved and handed down.
When the final period of their suffering was close at hand they resolved to fly
towards the palace of their father Lir, who dwelled at the Hill of the White Field, in
Armagh, to see how things have fared with him. They did so; but found nothing but green
mounds and whin-bushes and nettles where the palace of their father had been. They could not
see it any longer.
On Erris Bay they approach a hermit and make themselves known to him. He instructed
them in the Christian faith, and they joined him in the church singing.
Now it happened that a princess of Munster (the "woman of the South") was betrothed
to a Connacht chief, and begged him to give her the four wonderful singing swans as wedding
gift. He asked them of the hermit, but he refused to give them up. And then the "man of the
North" seized them violently by the silver chains that the hermit had coupled them with, and
dragged them off to his princess. But the moment they came in front of her, the swan plumage
fell off and revealed four withered, snowy-haired, old human beings, shrunken in their vast
old age.
The princess fled the place in horror, but the hermit prepared to baptise them at
once, for the four old people were now about to die.
"Lay us in one grave," said Fionuala, "and place Conn at my right hand and Fiachra
at my left, and Hugh before my face, for there they were wont to be when I sheltered them
many a winter night on the seas of Moyle."
And the hermit sorrowed for them to the end of his days.
As for the rest of the mnemonic phrase we have coined for tackling literate study:
vis is Latin for "power";
mea, is "my, mine", if uttered by a woman, for example as in "mea culpa".
You may see that Lir's swan-children eventually skipped all consideration for
and connection with their father, because they were not allowed to find his elfish
castle, in time.
His wife skipped all consideration and connection with him too, after being blinded
by jealousy and significant power, (her "vis mea").
In the light the tale and the added pinpointing above, the mnemonic phrase SKIP LIR,
VIS MEA serves as a comment to recall.
| S | Structural grasp | The structural grasp of a
poem is very important, but such a grasp is behind prose texts as well and makes for the
artistic whole - the whole can be judged by its structure of parts. Structure shows how
various parts or items are put together, organised. It may reveal the author plans and maybe
procedures as well. |
| K | Character, Karakter - | There are "flat and
round" characters of fiction. Flat characters are two-dimensional in that they are
relatively uncomplicated and do not change throughout the course of a work. Or perhaps they
are stereotypes. By contrast, round characters are complex and undergo development,
sometimes sufficiently to surprise the reader. You're also referred to the mnemonic STERN
OSCAR above. |
| I | Imprecated, irresistible sounds | In poetic
texts, sounds and sound-flow are important. Alliteration is just one example of use of
sounds in regular, established ways. They play a role in prose too. In the opening paragraph
of the second chapter of the novel Hard Times by Charles Dickens, there is a Thomas
Gradgrind (gradually grind, or graduate grinder etc). The name is associated with
mechanical, repetitive drudgery. One more: "Mr. Gradgrind . . . gradually grinds childish
fancy, curiosity . . ." (Jane Vogel) [Link] |
| P | Plot | The structure of interrelated,
selected and arranged actions by the author. A plot organises events in a course or
'movement'. Plot can also be understood, in some contexts, as an outline of the carrying
events. There is a variety of interpretations of plots, what they are, and what is
highlighted. |
| | | |
| LI | Lief (dear) language | It is both figurative
and rhetorical language with various relevant components (for your topic) - Figurative
language is the flower of written communication - where the statement means something else
(also over and above) what is literally expressed. Figures of speech are formed by extending
the vocabulary of something already familiar and better known to something less well known.
One may keep a tentative outlook for such as allegories, personifications, similes, mixed
metaphors, figures of speech, synechdotes, and implicit metaphors. These are means to
express well. Figurative language became one of the parts of a text that the New
Criticism looked sharply at. For rhetorical language items: Links: [A B] |
| R, | Rhythm | Rhythm is essential to
poetry; prose may exhibit rhythm but in a much less highly organised sense. Rhythm
may be hard to define, but involves peculiarities of movement and repetition, and
there is pattern and the overarching structure. Rhythm can be patterned recurrence of
specific language features marked by some sort of regularity. Metre can be one way of
of organising a poem's rhythm, but metre is not needed for poetry. There are metrical
schemes to take into consideration too. And did you know that some authorities
recognize a further source of poetic rhythm in the highly organized patterning of
imagery? |
| | | |
| V | View-points | A point of view (shooting
angle in motion picture) reflects a standing or stance. |
| I | Ideas and imagery | We refer to ideas
suggested, connotations, and imagery made use of first and foremost. |
| S | Setting | The place and time frame of the
action of a narrative. |
| | | |
| M | Meaning-making | Meaning in
fiction can be debated. Figures of speech, connotations, obscure artistry, allusions and
other means confer meaning-making on the art critics at times. |
| E | Esthetic relevance (US spelling) | This one
is added here. TK - Let there be room for elegant use of aesthetic intuition (Cf. Thomas
Huxley). It may work well to end a summary of a text by pointing to its artistic merits and
hence artistic relevance. |
| A | Accommodating hivernantes (winter tourists) | (Also added:) You could make pregnant, poignant, and very well organised
memo-summaries to last for "the winter" and further. [See mind
maps, for example] |
What is given here, is a multi-purpose, open-ended blend.
The mnemonic letters in the pale blue boxes (S, I, Li, R, I, E) show elements
commonly found in poetry. Our Firm Criticism has unified them here. Since genres
may fuse and blend, it makes good sense to have a close look at:-
Structural items;
- Figurative elements;
- Suggested connotations (almost the same in some cases);
- Aesthetic (artistic) relevance.
It's only fair to include them and the others in a survey. And if you mean to learn
gist (central items) so that it sticks, think of yourself as one of "the hivernantes" and so
on.
This study is much compressed. It needs to be coupled to textbooks or texts to work somewhat
as intented.
Literature
Ams: Atkinson, Richard et al: Introduction to Psychology. 9th ed. San Diego: Harcourt, Brace,
Jovanovich, 1987.
His: Atkinson, Rita et al.: Hilgard's Introduction to Psychology. 13th ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt
College, 2000.
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