MY EXPERIENCE WITH MNEMONICS
Due to the difficult nature of organic chemistry, many of the
mnemonic devices I was presented with were too complicated to use. I
originally decided to try using the peg system. After attempting it, I realized
that since it involves more of a set image such as a bun, a door,
etc., that it was too difficult to relate a compound and it's structure to
these images and have them be memorable and not just random. After reading
about other various forms of mnemonics I decided that the keyword mnemonic
was more appropriate. The keyword mnemonic is mostly used to memorize
words in a foreign language. The names of the organic structures I needed
to memorize were of a similar nature. I was able to break the words up
into common English words and form a sentence and an image that revealed
the structure.
For the final in organic chemistry we were required to memorize a
list of 20 amino acids which were divided into 7 categories. We needed to
know their name, structure, which of the 7 categories they were from, and
the three letter description word that identifies it. What I found from
this was that while creating the keywords for each compound the actual
creation process helped in learning them without much of a need for the
mnemonic. The keyword was useful in that if I was unsure about any part I
could recall the mnemonic used and remember each part with accuracy. It
gave me a cue to use that repetition alone would not have given.
The compound pictured to
the left is an example of one of the Amino Acids I needed to memorize. It is
also one of the smaller ones. The name of it is Glycine. I broke the word up into "gly" and "seen". I
remembered gly in one of two ways, either as someone's name or as "guy". The image/sentence
that I used to remember the structure and it's name was "Gly was seen with an extra Hand". The
reason I chose this was because the group that this if from, Aliphatic compounds, all have a similar
structure and after memorizing the general structure the second Hydrogen coming off the Carbon
was the difference, giving me the idea of "the extra Hand". This created an unusual image of a guy
with an extra hand which I associated with Hydrogen allowing me to remember the structure while
the sentence helped me recall the name. I did this for each of the structures on the list.
This process, although very different, reminded me of high school
when teachers would allow us to have a sheet of paper or an index card that
contained as much or any information we wanted and could bring it to the
test. The reason it reminded me of it was because when making the sheet
you had to pull out the most important information and know exactly where
it was on the page in order for it to be helpful. The process of doing
this, although we thought we were getting off easy, actually taught us the
information because we had go through all the notes to find what was most
important and we needed to know how to use it in order benefit from the
sheet. Writing out the information, usually formulas in math or science,
actually helped to encode them in our memory and having the card with us in
the test acted as a security blanket. The reason it is similar is because
while creating the mnemonics for the list I needed to memorize I ended up
learning them and although I haven't taken the test yet, I'm sure that
knowing I have a keyword mnemonic that I created will act as my security
blanket. It also helped because I had to select what information I needed
to memorize as opposed to the conceptual information that will also be on
the final.