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Remembering Simple Ordered Lists A popular pegword system
The Alphabet system is a peg memory technique
similar to, but more sophisticated than, the Number/Rhyme
system. It is a good method for remembering longer lists
of items in a specific order, in such a way that you can
tell if items are missing.
It works by associating images representing
letters of the alphabet with images you create for the things
to be remembered.
How to Use the Tool:
When you are creating images for the letters
of the alphabet, create images phonetically, so that the
sound of the first syllable of the word is the name of the
letter. For example, you might represent the letter 'k'
with the word 'cake'.
Tony Buzan, in his book Use
Your Perfect Memory, suggests using a system for creating
vivid images that you can reconstruct if you forget them. He suggests
taking the phonetic letter sound as the first consonant, and then,
for the rest of the consonants in the word, using the first letters
in alphabetical order that make a memorable word. For example
for the letter 'S' (root 'Es') we would first see if any strong
images presented themselves when we tried to create a word starting
with 'EsA', 'EsB', 'EsC', 'EsD', 'EsE', etc.).
This approach has the advantage of producing an image that you
can reconstruct if you forget it. You might, however, judge that
this is an unnecessary complication of a relatively simple system.
In any case it is best to select the strongest image that comes
to mind and stick with it.
One image scheme is shown below:
A - Ace of spades
B - Bee
C - Sea
D - Diesel engine
E - Eel
F - Effluent
G - Jeans
H - H-Bomb, itch
I - Eye
J - Jade
K - Cake
L - Elephant
M - Empty
N - Entrance
O - Oboe
P - Pea
Q - Queue
R - Ark
S - Eskimo
T - Teapot
U - Unicycle
V - Vehicle
W - WC
X - X-Ray
Y - Wire
Z - Zulu
If you find that these images do not attract you or stick in your
mind, then change them for something more meaningful to you.
Once you have firmly visualised these images and have linked them
to their root letters, you can associate them with information to
be remembered.
See the introduction to this chapter to see how you can improve
these pictures to help them stay clearly in your mind. Once you
have mastered this technique you can multiply the it using the images
described in the article on Expanding Memory Systems (see 7.2).
Example:
Continuing our mnemonic example of the names of philosophers, we
will use the example of remembering a list of modern thinkers:
A - Ace - Freud - a crisp ACE being pulled out of a FRying pan
(FRiED)
B - Bee - Chomsky - a BEE stinging a CHiMp and flying off into the
SKY
C - Sea - Genette - a GENerator being lifted in a NET out of the
SEA
D - Diesel - Derrida - a DaRing RIDer surfing on top of a DIESEL
train
E - Eagle - Foucault - Bruce Lee fighting off an attacking EAGLE
with kung
FU
F - Effluent- Joyce - environmentalists JOYfully finding a plant
by an
EFFLUENT pipe
G - Jeans - Nietzche - a holey pair of JEANS with a kNEe showing
through
H - H-Bomb - Kafka - a grey civil service CAFe being blown up by
an H-Bomb
etc.
Key Points:
The Alphabet Technique links the items to be remembered with images
of the letters A-Z. This allows you to remember a medium length
list in the correct order. By pegging the items to be remembered
to letters of the alphabet you know if you have forgotten items,
and know the cues to use to trigger their recall.
The Journey System is the next tool we look at. This is a powerful
technique for quickly remembering long lists. To read this, click
"Next article" below. Other relevant destinations are
shown in the "Where to go from here" list underneath.
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