| Hi! I’m Kevin, the content author/editor of the Memory Page. The Memory Page is so popular now (350 hits/day as of 08 Apr 01) that I am no longer able to Email personal replies to everyone with a memory question! But I’d still like to be able to help you as best I can, so please read read the section below that applies to you.If you need memory advice, such as “How do I memorize medical terms for an upcoming exam?”, then: 1) Check out the Tips & Tricks page to see if your question or a similar question is answered. With a little thought, creativity, and practice, you can often adapt a memory technique to apply it to a specific memory challenge. 2) If you still haven’t found the help you need, post your memory question in the Yahoo! Memory Club. I read this club regularly. If I do not answer your question personally, one of the other members of the club will most likely give you an answer within a few days. 3) If you need an answer more quickly, or if no one is able to help you, you can try doing your own research by exploring the links to other sites and books list. |
If you are doing research for a school project, and you have a question, please refer to “if you need memory advice” above. If you want to use material from The Memory Page in a report that you are writing, be sure to give full credit to me and to refer to my copyright notice. See also “if you want to use material from The Memory Page” below.
If you want to make a comment about the Memory Page, such as how much it has helped you, or if there’s something I need to add or improve, feel free to click on my picture to send me an Email. I will definitely receive and read your Email, but I usually will not be able to send a reply. By the way, I appreciate very much the dozens of feedback Emails that I have received over the last few years! It is very meaningful and helpful to me.
If you have a specific, quick clarification question about one of the web pages on The Memory Page, such as “why is the peg word for 71 cat when the letter ‘C’ does not appear in the mnemonic alphabet chart?”, you can click on my picture to send me an Email. Please make sure it’s a simple question, though, and not something that would require a long response. I’ll try to reply as soon as I can, but sometimes it may take me 1-4 weeks to reply.
If you want to ask permission to link to The Memory Page, you do not need to Email. If you are merely listing The Memory Page as a useful web site on your own web site, and you have a very short description of The Memory Page to go with it, this is fine — you already have my permission!
If you want to use material from The Memory Page in a publication, or an online training course, or to print out to give to friends, or something similar, please refer to my copyright notice. Please click on the picture to Email me if what you want to do is something special that my notice does not specifically address. Note that if you are building your own web site on memory, I strongly suggest using a link to The Memory Page rather than copying material from it. Please do not copy large sections of material from The Memory Page and then modify the content. If you use any material at all, always give the copyright information as per my copyright notice.
If you want to share some information about memory that you would like me to post on The Memory Page to share with everyone, feel free to click on my picture to send me an Email. To make things easier for me, please 1) give me permission in advance to use your material, and 2) try to type your message in a format such that I can post it on The Memory Page without having to make a lot of editing changes (it will end up on The Memory Page a lot faster if you help me in this way). Note that I will not necessarily post everything that I receive, but if it is something new and helpful, I probably will. Regardless of my decision, I will send you an Email to acknowledge the receipt of the submission, and I will always tell you if I plan to use your material. You will not receive anything else in return, but I will post your material on The Memory Page so that everyone in the world can benefit from it. Please write from your personal experience, as I cannot take something that is typed directly from a copyrighted book. If you used a book to come up with your idea, please give a full reference (author’s name, book title, publisher, city of publication, year of publication) with your submission.
Please allow 1 to 4 weeks for a reply Email if you are Emailing me. If your reason to Email me does not fit in any of the above categories, I will make a very good effort to give you a reply (even if it takes me a while). However, please specifically tell me in your Email that you are writing because your reason does not fit the standard categories above; I will have a great deal of appreciation for you because you took the time to consider my own needs before you sent the Email. Thanks!
MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Since I have what seems to be one of the most popular sites on memory on the web, people consider me a memory expert. Actually, I’m probably a lot like you. First of all, I do not have an exceptional memory in that I can just look at a piece of paper with 100 items on it for 10 seconds, then look away and recite all 100 items. There are people who can do that, but not me. I have a quite average memory. The only difference is that I’ve studied how to use my memory more effectively while most people haven’t. So I have a good memory only because I’ve practiced. This should be good encouragement for you — with practice, you can accomplish amazing things with memory, too.
Also, I suspect many people believe that I read books on memory all the time, have done my own research and have tried out lots of different memory products. This is not true. Actually, I’m just your average busy American without a whole lot of time to read. I’ve taken a more practical approach. While it might be fun to study all the books on memory and devote a lot of time to trying out all the techniques, actually I’ve read not more than half a dozen books or large documents on memory. After a while, the techniques became obvious, and now I focus on putting the techniques into practice.
If I am seen as an expert, then, it is not because of my sheer abilities or because I’ve read hundreds of books and papers, but only because I’ve studied memory more than most people and therefore know more than most people on the subject. (I also tend to be very committed to whatever I set out to do, unlike others who try out lots of things but rarely stick to any of them.) But I’m happy to help people if I can. When people ask me a question via Email, I don’t usually have a perfect answer that is backed by years of memory research and by several authors. I just take what I’ve learned from my own knowledge and experience and try to apply it to the person’s problem. Often it is finding a creative way to apply the memory techniques to a new situation. Sometimes it is merely giving encouragement. If I can help people in this way, I am happy.
If my pages on memory have been helpful, I encourage you to visit other web sites on memory and read at least one good book on memory. It is always helpful to have more than one perspective on a subject, and reading the same ideas again in a different way will help reinforce them. By the way, you ought to do this for any other subject you read about on the Web… it is too easy now days for someone to put up pages with inaccurate or false information, and checking out multiple sources is a way to protect yourself and get closer to the truth.
I said earlier that I am seen as an expert only because I know more about memory than most people. Actually, I hope this changes, and I hope the Memory Page is a way for me to share my knowledge with many, many others. When this happens, there truly will be a lot of experts on memory, and we all will be little better off than we were before.
For those who are interested…
SECRET TO THE POPULARITY OF THE MEMORY PAGE
Seventy hits a day (as of mid-1998)? What’s my secret??
Since so many people are making their own web pages, I thought I’d add this section. Actually, there is no big secret. I used to have web pages on all sorts of different topics, but I discovered that very few people visited them, particularly because the information was duplicated many, many times across the web. (Example: Just imagine how many Star Trek fans have their own personal pages on Star Trek.) But the information about memory seemed to be very hard to find anywhere else on the web. It was this that people were interested in. So I dumped almost all of my other pages and specialized on memory.
I’ve had many people write me and tell me that I have the best site on memory on the entire World Wide Web. That is quite astonishing because I had no idea my site would become this important and popular. I established the site as a hobby, not to make money, and I have updated it in my spare time — simply as a public service to help out other people who are interested in the subject. Over time I have added additional documents and links to improve the site and make it a more valuable information resource.
Now that I am graduated from college, I’m extremely busy with my job and do not have time to update the Memory Page more frequently than every few months. But this is okay, because all of the basic information is now there, and anything else is just “icing on the cake”. This also demonstrates that you don’t need to have a lot of free time to have a successful web page. Of course, I imagine that most people who visit will only visit once or twice, and I don’t have to worry about selling anything, so I don’t have to worry about constantly changing the site to make a good impression.
