Effective learning: Rules of formulating knowledge (1999)
13 comments
·September 1, 2025_qua
If I hadn't stubbled upon this essay and Anki, I think by way of a Wired article, I'm not sure I would have gotten into or passed medical school. They were eye opening and turned me from an average smart student into a leader of my class. I had planned to keep doing my cards after moving on to fellowship but alas, life gets in the way.
8s2ngy
That's impressive! Would you mind sharing how you used Anki for your studies?
dang
Related:
Rules of formulating knowledge in learning (1999) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22524122 - March 2020 (2 comments)
Effective learning: Twenty rules of formulating knowledge (1999) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18404150 - Nov 2018 (17 comments)
Effective learning: Rules of formulating knowledge (1999) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13047576 - Nov 2016 (35 comments)
Effective learning: Twenty rules of formulating knowledge (1999) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10785221 - Dec 2015 (1 comment)
joshdavham
If you wanna go deeper, I’d recommend checking out https://supermemo.guru/wiki/SuperMemo_Guru
It’s a bit of a treasure trove for us spaced repetition nerds!
greymalik
It feels circular. How is learning different from understanding? How is understanding different from knowledge? I’m supposed to understand before I learn. How do I understand if not through learning? I’m supposed to understand to gain knowledge. Isn’t knowledge understanding?
aDyslecticCrow
Memorization is part of learning. Memorized knowledge is knowledge. But memorized knowledge isnt understanding.
You can fully understand something without being able to recall it perfectly later.
volemo
How does one walk? To walk one needs to move their foot forward, to move their foot they have to lift it up, to lift a foot up they first have to place it down, and that requires moving it forward. It feels circular!
Learning is circular. You do it step by step, one bite at a time: you learn a fact, you understand its connection to other facts you know, you gain a little knowledge, you repeat.
brian_spiering
You are correct that those concepts are interrelated. It works well not to get caught up in precise definitions. Instead, reflect on your current level and take the next best step.
dleeftink
Enter: knowledge. It's a messy thing. Before you know it, it 'clicks'. That's the only thing worth chasing.
aDyslecticCrow
I have notes with me for anything of importance. rule 2 and beyond is of no concern to me.
I got through uni on entirely point 1, and only relied on accidental memorization from the process of understanding.
I find alot of study advice under-emphasise point 1, and over-emphasise memorization techniques.
treetalker
I always thought that point 1 is obvious (don't try to memorize Goethe in the original if you don't understand any German) and that point 2 is where it's at, and what most people underemphasize (learn the material before you try to memorize it). Granted, some types of learning and memorization go hand in hand; but for me the key point is to not try to use SRS to learn the material. Writing and rewriting notes; explaining topics out loud to myself and others; and using information to create something of my own — those are the ways I learn best. And at that point I've naturally memorized a lot already because I've "internalized" it; the spaced recall system becomes more of a repeating task list to remind me to practice recalling what I already learned, right before I would forget it. In that way it's similar to my OmniFocus lists of repeating maintenance tasks and chores, except that the repetition scheme varies with my forgetting curve instead of on a plain daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly schedule.
sandspar
If you've used AI to create flashcards then you've probably encountered many annoyances. For example, AI-created flashcards tend to be too wordy. Share this article with them and ask them to follow the rules. It makes for better flashcards.
Too bad Piotr Wozniak (inventor of SuperMemo) is such a hermit and uncompromising of his lifestyle choices, that most of his life's work was eventually superseded by open-source solutions (Anki + FSRS).
I had tons of material in SuperMemo for years. Gave up and fully switched to Anki.
At least I'm thankful for his spaced-repetition algorithms. Also, his articles restored my love for learning and helped me confirm that school was an insane waste of time and resources.