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How to Add Information from Your Working Memory to Your Long-Term Memory. Does information
go in one ear, and come out the other? In order to get new knowledge to stick, you need
to make it a part of your long-term memory. You will need Understanding of memory Introductory
statement Diagrams Models and orienting questions (optional). Step 1. Understand memory -- episodic
memory is when you remember events by picturing them as episodes in your head, semantic memory
deals with facts and generalized information, and procedural memory deals with how to perform
a task or strategy. Step 2. Understand the strategy of encoding information. In order
to store new information into your long-term memory, you must relate it to information
already stored in you long-term memory. The more meaningful the comparison, the more likely
the new information will stay in your memory. Step 3. Have a background in the subject you
are trying to add to your memory. A person with a background in Civil War history will
find it easier to gain new knowledge about the Civil War. Make connections to modern
cultural situations you are familiar with if you don't have a background in the subject.
Step 4. Use introductory statements provided by instructors, or the material, as a springboard.
Introductory statements highlight the relationships between the new information and the information
already in your long-term memory. Answer orienting questions, or questions that are asked by
an instructor or the material, to lead you to see these relationships. Step 5. Explain
or expand on the new information. This strategy, known as elaborative interrogation, will help
you remember your new information by forcing you to come up with your own explanation about
how it works. Step 6. Look at diagrams and models that help show the new information.
Diagram the new information for yourself to aid storing it into your long-term memory.
Step 7. Learn from your mistakes. If you get a question or a concept wrong, focus on why
it was wrong, and what the correct answer is. This strategy of using feedback loops
can help you remember the correct answer in the future. Step 8. Rehearse your new information.
Repeatedly review what you've learned over a long-term period until the new information
is ingrained in your long-term memory. Tend to your memory and it will tend to you. Did
you know The human brain contains roughly 100 billion neurons, or nerve cells.