Reading & Retention

Reading and retention are two separate operations. Taking material in, by reading it, watching it, or hearing it, puts it in front of you. It does not by itself keep any of it. What you keep depends on what you do afterward, and the right step differs by the kind of material. Procedural material is digested by practice. Analogous material is digested by critique of the analogy. Conceptual material is digested by mapping it against what you already hold. Evidence is digested by rehearsing it in the setting where you would use it. Reference material only needs to be stored where you can find it again.

The target in every case is memory you can use: enough to reason with, teach from, or act on.

Core takeaways

• Every meaningful unit of consumption needs a matching digestion step. If there is no time or energy to digest, consume less.
• Information types need different processing moves. Memory is most usable when the way it was encoded matches the way it will be used later.
• PACER is a triage system with five jobs, in order: practice, critique, mapping, contextual rehearsal, store-or-recall. It decides where effort goes. A reader who tries to label every line will stall.
• Procedural knowledge is built by doing. Rereading is a low-utility strategy, and testing is a high-utility one.
• Expert knowledge is a network. Conceptual digestion is mapping, which means rebuilding the relationships between ideas, in any format.
• Evidence is stored and rehearsed against the concept it supports. Reference is stored, and goes on a spaced recall loop only when the fact itself must be recalled.

Consumption and digestion have to balance

Consumption is the exposure: a book, a lecture, an audiobook, an article, a clipped source. Digestion is what you do after the exposure: practicing, mapping, critiquing, rehearsing, connecting, or storing. The two stages have to stay balanced. Every meaningful unit of consumption needs a matching digestion step. More input is only valuable when it can be processed. Material consumed and not digested becomes work that has to be done later. If there is no time or energy to digest, the practical move is usually to consume less.

Using one generic note method for every kind of information breaks this rule. Information types need different processing moves, because memory is most usable when the way it was encoded matches the way it will later be used. Consumption without matching digestion produces a pile of fragments that feel familiar. Recognition is not usable memory.

PACER: five digestion jobs

PACER is a triage system for deciding what kind of digestion a piece of information needs. Its purpose is to decide where effort goes. The five jobs, in order: practice, critique, mapping, contextual rehearsal, store-or-recall. Mixed types are the norm. An analogy can sit inside a procedure or a map. The unit to classify is the digestion job a passage needs, and a passage can need more than one. A reader who tries to label every line will stall. The five letters are a scheme for spending attention. They are not a finding about how memory is built.

Procedural information: practice it

Procedural information is how to do something: coding techniques, pronunciation, a workflow, a clinical or physical procedure, a step-by-step skill rule, a study method. Digestion is practice. Procedural information decays quickly when it stays abstract. Notes can support practice. A written procedure is still declarative, so notes cannot replace the practice. If the information tells how to do something, stop reading early enough to try the thing. Kolbs Experiential Cycle is that attempt: notice the break, name the adjustment, try again.

Analogous information: critique the analogy

Analogous information is related to something already known. Digestion is critique of the analogy. The learning happens in the alignment between the new idea and the known one, including the points where the alignment ends. Critique is the step that usually gets skipped. The questions, in full:

• What is actually similar?
• What is different?
• Where does the analogy break?
• What condition makes it useful?
• What condition makes it misleading?
• Can it be extended, narrowed, or replaced?

Critiquing attaches the new idea to an existing network with boundaries. Comparison, discrimination, relationship-building: this is a Deep Processing move applied to a resemblance.

Knowledge is a network

A page presents ideas in a sequence because language is sequential. The knowledge itself is a network. Expert knowledge is flexible: one concept can lead to another through multiple paths. This is why conceptual digestion is mapping rather than more notes in the author’s order. It is also why the remaining three jobs, mapping, contextual rehearsal, and store-or-recall, allocate effort instead of adding labels.

Conceptual information: map it

Conceptual information is principles, explanations, relationships, theories. Digestion is mapping. Good conceptual digestion groups ideas, names the relationships between them, separates central from supporting, moves ideas as understanding changes, preserves dependencies and contrasts, and builds a structure that can be reconstructed. Mapping means rebuilding the relationships. It does not require a particular format, and it does not require buying a tablet.

Doing that work while the source is still open is the Bear Hunter System: four-pass encoding. Aim writes what the material must answer before it is opened. Shoot works the source against those questions into a rough map. Skin prunes the map to what can be reconstructed without the source.

Evidence: store it and rehearse it in context

Evidence is examples, cases, dates, statistics, studies, named incidents. Digestion is store and rehearse in context. Evidence should be captured reliably. It should not dominate the reading session. Its value comes from what it supports. Evidence is proof material attached to a conceptual structure.

Good evidence rehearsal asks:

• What concept does this support?
• When would I use this example?
• What claim does it make concrete?
• What comparison does it enable?
• What question could this help answer?

Those questions are the rehearsal form. Cards of dates are the wrong later test. Evidence stays on the map unless the later test is the fact itself. Spaced Interleaved Retrieval handles reference, and handles evidence only when the evidence itself must be produced.

Reference: store it, and recall it only when required

Reference is exact details, labels, names, values, lookup facts. Digestion is store, and rehearse directly if memory of the detail is required. Many facts only need a clean store. Reading attention should not go to rereading exact details while conceptual and procedural work is unfinished. Reference is usually easier to handle later, on the same spaced retrieval loop.

The working loop

The working loop is: consume, classify, do the matching digestion, encode into a usable structure, rehearse or apply later, retrieve in the form the work requires. The step the loop depends on is the stop: when digestion falls behind, input slows. Before the next unit, the question to ask is what kind of information this is and what it needs.

The common failure and its repair

The failure, in order: consume too much, fail to classify, apply one generic note method, forget or settle for shallow familiarity, reread later, and pay the reading cost a second time plus more. Rereading is a low-utility strategy. Familiarity mistaken for mastery is the metacognitive error. The session looks productive at the time. Little of it is retained. The repair: slow the input, identify the job, digest before continuing, store only what should be stored, rehearse only what needs rehearsal.

What good reading looks like, and the warning signs

Good reading is selective and controlled. It slows at important points. The next action is obvious. Concepts form a map. Evidence attaches to claims. Procedures become attempts. Details are stored without taking over the session. Less is consumed and more of it is retained.

Warning signs: the source moves ahead faster than the map; everything becomes a note; details take attention from structure; procedures are saved but not tried; analogies are noticed but not tested; familiarity without usable memory.

Where this fits in the vault

The Bear Hunter System should handle procedural, analogous, and conceptual material while the source is still open. Spaced Interleaved Retrieval should handle reference, and evidence only when the evidence itself must be produced. Knowledge Base as Thinking Partner helps classify and digest. It must not replace first-brain digestion, the digestion the reader does without the tool. Are You Thinking, or Just Consuming? describes the warning sign. A knowledge base that collects sources without matching digestion is overconsumption.

What the research supports, and what it does not

Established: what is done with the input decides the memory trace; the encoding that matches later use produces the most usable memory; procedural knowledge is built by doing; analogical learning happens in the alignment, including where it breaks; expert knowledge is a network; rereading is low-utility and testing is high-utility; spaced recall is the tool for arbitrary items.

Not established: PACER as a field taxonomy. The five moves are supported. The five-letter partition is house triage. Whether mapping must be a mind map has mixed evidence; the instruction is to rebuild the relations, in any format. Whether classifying during the read outperforms a second-pass sort is open.

Objections, cost, quit signals, and checks

The case against: labeling every sentence stalls the read; using the five letters as boxes instead of jobs; letting evidence become a card pile; treating mapping as a format purchase. The cost is digestion time, and that time is the work the balance rule asks for. The benefit is a usable structure in place of familiar fragments. Quit signals: the only output is notes and there is no next action; procedures still untried after a full source; two sessions of “I’ll digest later.” Checkable: less consumed, more retained; a procedure was attempted; an analogy was tested at the break-point; evidence is attached to a claim; a map can be reconstructed with the source closed.

How to practice this

1. Before opening a source, write down what it must answer. Notice whether the reading then slows at the points that answer those questions.
2. As you read, ask what kind of information each part is and which digestion job it needs. Notice if you start labeling every line. Labeling every line stalls the read.
3. When the source tells you how to do something, stop and try it before reading on. Notice where the attempt breaks, name the adjustment, and try again.
4. When the source relates a new idea to something you already know, ask where the analogy breaks. Notice which condition makes it useful and which makes it misleading.
5. After the session, close the source and rebuild the map of the concepts from memory. Notice which relationships you cannot rebuild without the source.
6. If digestion falls behind, consume less until it catches up. Notice whether two sessions have ended with the plan to digest later. Two sessions of that is a quit signal.

Related pages

• Kolbs Experiential Cycle: procedural digestion. Attempt, notice the break, name the adjustment, try again.
• Deep Processing: critique-the-analogy is this dimension applied to a resemblance.
• Bear Hunter System: conceptual digestion, and active procedural and analogous digestion, while the source is open.
• Aim: the question frame before the map.
• Shoot: the working structure.

4 more related pages

• Skin: the clean map that can be reconstructed.
• Spaced Interleaved Retrieval: direct memory for reference, and for evidence only when the evidence itself must be produced.
• Knowledge Base as Thinking Partner: helps classify; must not replace first-brain digestion.
• Are You Thinking, or Just Consuming?: the warning sign for a knowledge base that collects sources without digesting them.

Open questions

Whether classifying during the read outperforms a second-pass sort.

Sources

• Craik & Lockhart, “Levels of processing,” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1972; Craik, 2002.
• Morris, Bransford & Franks, “Levels of processing versus transfer appropriate processing,” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1977.
• Anderson, ACT-R; Fitts & Posner, Human Performance, 1967.
• Gentner, “Structure-mapping,” Cognitive Science, 1983.
• Chi, Feltovich & Glaser, “Categorization and representation of physics problems by experts and novices,” Cognitive Science, 1981.
• Fiorella & Mayer, Learning as a Generative Activity, 2015.
• Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan & Willingham, “Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques,” Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2013; Roediger & Karpicke, 2006.
• Cepeda, Pashler, Vul, Wixted & Rohrer, “Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks,” Psychological Bulletin, 2006.