- Acronyms – An acronym is a word or phrase made by using the first letter of key words in a list of items to remember.
Example:
HOMES = Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior (the five Great Lakes)
- Acrostics – An acrostic is a sentence made by using the first letter of key words in a list of items to remember.
An example:
Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally = parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction (represents the order of operations in math problems)
- Word Associations – Word associations are jingles, rhymes, short songs, and raps that work as memory tools to recall information.
Examples:
Use i before e except after c or when sounded like a as in neighbor and weigh.
Righty tighty, lefty loosy (to remember which way to turn a bolt or to tighten a jar)
In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
- Picture Associations - Picture associations are visual suggestions to help you to easily remember and recall information.
Example:
Term: Mao Tse-tung
Definition: Leader of the Chinese Revolution
Visual Association: Draw a person mowing the lawn, a person saying something, and a tongue.
- The Loci Method –The loci method is a mnemonic technique that involves associating items or topics with specific rooms in a familiar building.
Example:
Assume you have to give a speech or write an essay for a history class about the end of the economic boom in the 1970s. Visualize walking through a building on campus, like the student union:
- At the front door, picture a poster that says, “350 percent increase in oil prices.”
- In the hallway, picture rows of oil barrels with large Xs on them for Arab oil embargo
- In the cafeteria, picture food prices: hamburgers $7.50, milk $3.00, for high retail prices.
- In the lounge, picture posters on the walls of closed auto factories for slump in auto industry
- In the hall as you leave, picture people lined up for job interviews for high unemployment.
