Is anyone willing to share an Anki deck with me?
I’m trying to start using it. I’m running into a problem likely derived from having never, uh, learned how to learn. I look through a book or a paper or an article, and I find it informative, and I have no idea what parts of it I want to turn into cards. It just strikes me as generically informative. I think that learning this by example is going to be by far the easiest method.
There are many shared Anki decks. In my experience, the hardest thing to get correct in Anki is picking the correct thing to learn, and seeing someone else’s deck doesn’t work all that well for it because there’s no guarantee that they’re any good at picking what to learn, either.
Most of my experience with Anki has been with lists, like the NATO phonetic alphabet, where there’s no real way to learn them besides familiarity, and the list is more useful the more of it you know.
What I’d recommend is either picking selections from the source that you think are valuable, or summarizing the source into pieces that you think are valuable, and then sticking them as cards (perhaps with the title of the source as the reverse). The point isn’t necessarily to build the mapping between the selection and the title, but to reread the selected piece in intervals determined by the forgetting function.
Alright, I’ll be a little more clear. I’m looking for someone’s mixed deck, on multiple topics, and I’m looking for the structure of cards, things like length of section, amount of context, title choice, amount of topic overlap, number of cards per large scale concept.
I am really not looking for a deck that was shared with easily transferrable information like the NATO alphabet, I’m looking for how other people do the process of creating cards for new knowledge.
I am missing a big chunk of intuition on learning in general, and this is part of how I want to fix it. I also don’t expect people to really be able to answer my questions on it, and I don’t expect that I’ve gotten every specification. Which is why I wanted the example deck.
Edit: So I can’t pull a deck off Ankiweb because I want the kind of decks nobody puts on Ankiweb.
I could send you some of my anki cards, but I don’t know that you’ll get useful structural information out of them. They tend to be pretty random bits that I think I’ll want to know or phrases I want to build associations between. For most things, I take actual notes (I find that writing things down helps me remember the shape of the idea better, even if I never look at them), and only make flashcards for the highest value ideas.
It took me several months of starting and quitting anki to start to get the hang of it, and I’m still learning how to better structure cards to be easier to remember and transmit useful information.
I found this blog post and the two it links to at the top to be useful descriptions of an approach to learning, which incorporates anki among other things
Based on my own experience I strongly suspect the only way to do this is to fail repeatedly until you succeed. That said the following rules are very, very good.
If you really, really want an example I can send you my Developmental Psychology and Learning and Behaviour Deck. It consists of the entirety of a Cliff’s Notes kind of Developmental Psychology book, a better dev psych’s summary section and an L&B book’s summary section. In retrospect the Cliff’s Notes book was a mistake but I’ve invested enough in it now that I may as well continue it, most of the cards are mature anyway. I would recommend finding a decent book on the topic you’re learning, and writing your own summaries or heavily rewording their summaries and using lots and lots of cloze deletions.
Here again are the twenty rules of formulating knowledge. You will notice that the first 16 rules revolve around making memories simple! Some of the rules strongly overlap. For example: do not learn if you do not understand is a form of applying the minimum information principle which again is a way of making things simple:
Do not learn if you do not understand
Learn before you memorize—build the picture of the whole before you dismember it into simple items in SuperMemo. If the whole shows holes, review it again!
Build upon the basics—never jump both feet into a complex manual because you may never see the end. Well remembered basics will help the remaining knowledge easily fit in
Stick to the minimum information principle—if you continue forgetting an item, try to make it as simple as possible. If it does not help, see the remaining rules (cloze deletion, graphics, mnemonic techniques, converting sets into enumerations, etc.)
Cloze deletion is easy and effective—completing a deleted word or phrase is not only an effective way of learning. Most of all, it greatly speeds up formulating knowledge and is highly recommended for beginners
Use imagery—a picture is worth a thousand words
Use mnemonic techniques—read about peg lists and mind maps. Study the books by Tony Buzan. Learn how to convert memories into funny pictures. You won’t have problems with phone numbers and complex figures
Graphic deletion is as good as cloze deletion—obstructing parts of a picture is great for learning anatomy, geography and more
Avoid sets—larger sets are virtually un-memorizable unless you convert them into enumerations!
Avoid enumerations—enumerations are also hard to remember but can be dealt with using cloze deletion
Combat interference—even the simplest items can be completely intractable if they are similar to other items. Use examples, context cues, vivid illustrations, refer to emotions, and to your personal life
Optimize wording—like you reduce mathematical equations, you can reduce complex sentences into smart, compact and enjoyable maxims
Refer to other memories—building memories on other memories generates a coherent and hermetic structure that forgetting is less likely to affect. Build upon the basics and use planned redundancy to fill in the gaps
Personalize and provide examples—personalization might be the most effective way of building upon other memories. Your personal life is a gold mine of facts and events to refer to. As long as you build a collection for yourself, use personalization richly to build upon well established memories
Rely on emotional states—emotions are related to memories. If you learn a fact in the sate of sadness, you are more likely to recall it if when you are sad. Some memories can induce emotions and help you employ this property of the brain in remembering
Context cues simplify wording—providing context is a way of simplifying memories, building upon earlier knowledge and avoiding interference
Redundancy does not contradict minimum information principle—some forms of redundancy are welcome. There is little harm in memorizing the same fact as viewed from different angles. Passive and active approach is particularly practicable in learning word-pairs. Memorizing derivation steps in problem solving is a way towards boosting your intellectual powers!
Provide sources—sources help you manage the learning process, updating your knowledge, judging its reliability, or importance
Provide date stamping—time stamping is useful for volatile knowledge that changes in time
Prioritize—effective learning is all about prioritizing. In incremental reading you can start from badly formulated knowledge and improve its shape as you proceed with learning (in proportion to the cost of inappropriate formulation). If need be, you can review pieces of knowledge again, split it into parts, reformulate, reprioritize, or delete. See also: Incremental reading, Devouring knowledge, Flow of knowledge, Using tasklists
Is anyone willing to share an Anki deck with me? I’m trying to start using it. I’m running into a problem likely derived from having never, uh, learned how to learn. I look through a book or a paper or an article, and I find it informative, and I have no idea what parts of it I want to turn into cards. It just strikes me as generically informative. I think that learning this by example is going to be by far the easiest method.
There are many shared Anki decks. In my experience, the hardest thing to get correct in Anki is picking the correct thing to learn, and seeing someone else’s deck doesn’t work all that well for it because there’s no guarantee that they’re any good at picking what to learn, either.
Most of my experience with Anki has been with lists, like the NATO phonetic alphabet, where there’s no real way to learn them besides familiarity, and the list is more useful the more of it you know.
What I’d recommend is either picking selections from the source that you think are valuable, or summarizing the source into pieces that you think are valuable, and then sticking them as cards (perhaps with the title of the source as the reverse). The point isn’t necessarily to build the mapping between the selection and the title, but to reread the selected piece in intervals determined by the forgetting function.
Alright, I’ll be a little more clear. I’m looking for someone’s mixed deck, on multiple topics, and I’m looking for the structure of cards, things like length of section, amount of context, title choice, amount of topic overlap, number of cards per large scale concept.
I am really not looking for a deck that was shared with easily transferrable information like the NATO alphabet, I’m looking for how other people do the process of creating cards for new knowledge.
I am missing a big chunk of intuition on learning in general, and this is part of how I want to fix it. I also don’t expect people to really be able to answer my questions on it, and I don’t expect that I’ve gotten every specification. Which is why I wanted the example deck.
Edit: So I can’t pull a deck off Ankiweb because I want the kind of decks nobody puts on Ankiweb.
I could send you some of my anki cards, but I don’t know that you’ll get useful structural information out of them. They tend to be pretty random bits that I think I’ll want to know or phrases I want to build associations between. For most things, I take actual notes (I find that writing things down helps me remember the shape of the idea better, even if I never look at them), and only make flashcards for the highest value ideas.
It took me several months of starting and quitting anki to start to get the hang of it, and I’m still learning how to better structure cards to be easier to remember and transmit useful information.
I found this blog post and the two it links to at the top to be useful descriptions of an approach to learning, which incorporates anki among other things
Based on my own experience I strongly suspect the only way to do this is to fail repeatedly until you succeed. That said the following rules are very, very good.
If you really, really want an example I can send you my Developmental Psychology and Learning and Behaviour Deck. It consists of the entirety of a Cliff’s Notes kind of Developmental Psychology book, a better dev psych’s summary section and an L&B book’s summary section. In retrospect the Cliff’s Notes book was a mistake but I’ve invested enough in it now that I may as well continue it, most of the cards are mature anyway. I would recommend finding a decent book on the topic you’re learning, and writing your own summaries or heavily rewording their summaries and using lots and lots of cloze deletions.
I just found this guide to using Anki.
http://alexvermeer.com/anki-essentials/
It’s possible it may be worth looking at.
If you really want my deck pm me your email address.
http://super-memory.com/articles/20rules.htm
Here again are the twenty rules of formulating knowledge. You will notice that the first 16 rules revolve around making memories simple! Some of the rules strongly overlap. For example: do not learn if you do not understand is a form of applying the minimum information principle which again is a way of making things simple:
Do not learn if you do not understand Learn before you memorize—build the picture of the whole before you dismember it into simple items in SuperMemo. If the whole shows holes, review it again! Build upon the basics—never jump both feet into a complex manual because you may never see the end. Well remembered basics will help the remaining knowledge easily fit in Stick to the minimum information principle—if you continue forgetting an item, try to make it as simple as possible. If it does not help, see the remaining rules (cloze deletion, graphics, mnemonic techniques, converting sets into enumerations, etc.) Cloze deletion is easy and effective—completing a deleted word or phrase is not only an effective way of learning. Most of all, it greatly speeds up formulating knowledge and is highly recommended for beginners Use imagery—a picture is worth a thousand words Use mnemonic techniques—read about peg lists and mind maps. Study the books by Tony Buzan. Learn how to convert memories into funny pictures. You won’t have problems with phone numbers and complex figures Graphic deletion is as good as cloze deletion—obstructing parts of a picture is great for learning anatomy, geography and more Avoid sets—larger sets are virtually un-memorizable unless you convert them into enumerations! Avoid enumerations—enumerations are also hard to remember but can be dealt with using cloze deletion Combat interference—even the simplest items can be completely intractable if they are similar to other items. Use examples, context cues, vivid illustrations, refer to emotions, and to your personal life Optimize wording—like you reduce mathematical equations, you can reduce complex sentences into smart, compact and enjoyable maxims Refer to other memories—building memories on other memories generates a coherent and hermetic structure that forgetting is less likely to affect. Build upon the basics and use planned redundancy to fill in the gaps Personalize and provide examples—personalization might be the most effective way of building upon other memories. Your personal life is a gold mine of facts and events to refer to. As long as you build a collection for yourself, use personalization richly to build upon well established memories Rely on emotional states—emotions are related to memories. If you learn a fact in the sate of sadness, you are more likely to recall it if when you are sad. Some memories can induce emotions and help you employ this property of the brain in remembering Context cues simplify wording—providing context is a way of simplifying memories, building upon earlier knowledge and avoiding interference Redundancy does not contradict minimum information principle—some forms of redundancy are welcome. There is little harm in memorizing the same fact as viewed from different angles. Passive and active approach is particularly practicable in learning word-pairs. Memorizing derivation steps in problem solving is a way towards boosting your intellectual powers! Provide sources—sources help you manage the learning process, updating your knowledge, judging its reliability, or importance Provide date stamping—time stamping is useful for volatile knowledge that changes in time Prioritize—effective learning is all about prioritizing. In incremental reading you can start from badly formulated knowledge and improve its shape as you proceed with learning (in proportion to the cost of inappropriate formulation). If need be, you can review pieces of knowledge again, split it into parts, reformulate, reprioritize, or delete. See also: Incremental reading, Devouring knowledge, Flow of knowledge, Using tasklists
I don’t know if this question will help:
What is the least-bad way of doing the thing you want to do that you can think of?
(apologies I can be no help because I don’t anki; but I wonder if answering this question will help you)