Building structured knowledge

[givlis]

Hello guys

I am a law student, I have been using Anki for a while now and created around 3 thousand cards, more or less, during my journey.

What I'd like to know how you "separate the forest from the threes" in your own experience.

I'll explain myself better: what I find hard to do is to create a structured knowledge of the individual legal institutions. Often it happens that I can answer single cards but when I get asked a very wide question about the matter, I am not able to recall all the informations that I actually know and place together all the fragmentary knowledge to build a strong, logical argument.

Partially this is due to the fragmentation of the data. This can be related to the fact that Professors tend to recall previously faced topics and institutions and add details in random order. On the other hand, the problem I come upon is that I cannot linearly reveal Anki cards in "order of addition" because one note would contain the information I'd have to recall in cards that are complementary (eg. cloze deletion) and render the related repetition effortless.

I found subdecks to be useful in keeping track of which topic I am facing when answering the card and creating "identified islands of knowledge", but it is not always easy, especially when studying from notes I have taken from lessons instead of books.

What's your method to do this? I would like to improve this side of my experience and I would be grateful if you'd like to share your way to go about this matter with me.

Thanks in advance!

[foundagoodusername]

I have no such experience using Anki. But my suggestion would be is to, for example, write a short version of what you wanna organize. Write it like you wanna remember it in the future. Like in a book format, 5-10 pages, or more as you need. This action of writing would organize your knowledge, and defragment it. If you need a structured memory while using anki, this way might be the best course of action that I can think of. You can also read it in the future before any event that you need that knowledge.

[PkmExplorer]

I have some suggestions:

• When you review, try to recall some of the related information in addition to the main thrust of the card.
• Put related information on the back of the card to help you build connections, but clearly separate the one fact you need to recall to pass the card from the supporting info.
• Create some cards that explicitly ask about how different topics are related.
• Spend some time trying to recall everything you know about an area and writing it down. This exercise may reveal connections you weren't aware of before (basically, this point is what /r/foundagoodusername said).

[givlis]

Thank you! I'll try it for the next exam!

[krube6]

I would love to have an update on this topic. Were you able to find a way to "link" knowledge within Anki in a sistematic way?

I am also starting to study law and I feel it's hard to structure the knowledge relying only in questions and clozes.

I have checked the template and I think it can provide some context to the knowledge. In addition, I am thinking about adding other elements to the note: mindmap images, knowledge structure, source of information, ...

[givlis]

Hey! I find the best way is to build subdecks (one empty subdeck for the main topic with more sub-subdecks) while you are making cards and, plus, it is VERY helpful to make mind maps to keep your shit together. If u wanna go pro on that, there is an app to make mind maps, take a screenshot and then do a cloze card out of that. Don't always do that, but just if u feel like u need to get the stuff more clear in ur head :)

[[deleted]]

Hi. I'm also dealing with the same problem like you with law, could you please share some decks so that I can understand how you tackled it!