Keep an idea

Each idea says who knows it in words a six-year-old can hold. Here is what sits behind the ones that rest on research. The others are sayings or good advice, and their source line says so.

• “You remember a thing better when you try to say it from memory, not just read it again.” Roediger & Karpicke (2006): practising recall beats re-reading (the testing effect).
• “A little bit of practice on lots of days beats a big pile all in one day.” Ebbinghaus (1885) and a century of studies since: spaced practice beats cramming.
• “A mistake you fix teaches you more than a lucky right answer.” Metcalfe (2017), “Learning from errors”: a mistake that gets fixed is remembered well.
• “Your first idea is a start — the next one is often even better.” Beaty & Silvia (2012): later ideas in a brainstorm tend to be more original.
• “A fact tucked inside a story is a fact you can carry home.” Bower & Clark (1969): words linked in a story are remembered far better.
• “If you can teach it to a friend, you really know it.” Chase et al. (2009), the protégé effect: learning in order to teach someone helps.
• “Helping someone else learn a thing helps you learn it too.” Chase et al. (2009), the protégé effect.
• “Almost every meal you eat started as sunshine caught by a green leaf.” Photosynthesis: plants make food from sunlight, and food chains start with plants.
• “A tiny seed holds a baby plant and a packed lunch to help it start growing.” A seed holds an embryo (the baby plant) and stored food for its first days.
• “Bees carry a little dust from flower to flower, and that is how new fruit begins.” Pollination: bees carry pollen between flowers, and many fruits need it.
• “Knowing the real name for something makes it easier to talk and think about.” An idea people still discuss: how much the words we know shape how we think.