Writing good cards

How you write a card matters as much as how it’s scheduled. A good card takes a few seconds to answer and leaves no doubt about whether you got it right. These guidelines are the ones long-time spaced repetition users rely on, best known from Piotr Woźniak’s “Twenty rules of formulating knowledge”.

#Why it matters

A card is scheduled as a whole. If it holds four facts and you forget one, you press Again and relearn all four. Big cards also invite half-right answers that are hard to grade honestly. Small, sharp cards are faster to review and stick for longer, so even though you make more of them, you spend less time overall.

#One fact per card

This is the minimum information principle: make each card as simple as it can be. When an answer has several parts, check whether each part could be its own card.

#Ask a precise question

• Exactly one right answer. “Capital of Georgia?” could be Tbilisi or Atlanta. Say which, in the question or in the hint (“country”).
• Make it stand on its own. Cards from different decks come up mixed together, so the front needs enough context to make sense by itself.
• Ask for what you want to recall. “What does git stash do?” beats “Explain git stash”: you can answer it in a sentence and grade it at once.
• Keep it short. If you have to read the front twice, trim it.

#Avoid lists and sets

“Name the seven layers of the OSI model” is a classic hard card. It’s easy to get six out of seven, every review is slow, and it’s unclear whether a near miss counts. Lists, and sets where order doesn’t matter, are the hardest things to learn as a single card. Instead:

• Split it into one card per item, each with its own cue: “OSI layer 3?” → Network, “OSI layer that routes packets between networks?” → Network (layer 3).
• Use cloze deletions on an ordered list, one gap per card (see below).
• Add a mnemonic for the whole sequence in the extra field, and still test the items one by one.
• If you must learn a set as a whole, keep it to three or four items.

#Cloze deletions

A cloze card hides part of a sentence: “[…] is the capital of Australia.” Askesis has no cloze editor yet, but files you import can use cloze syntax in the front column, and each numbered gap becomes its own card:

#separator:comma
#html:false
#columns:deck,front,back,hint,extra,tags
#deck column:1
#tags column:6
Networking,"OSI layers, bottom up: {{c1::Physical}}, {{c2::Data link}}, {{c3::Network}}, {{c4::Transport}}",,,,osi
Geography,{{c1::Canberra::city}} is the capital of Australia.,,,,capitals

The first row makes four cards, each hiding one layer and showing the others; the answer appears in bold on the back. A hint after a second :: shows in the gap, so the second row asks “[city] is the capital of Australia.” Typed into the card editor, the braces stay as plain text. Keep cloze sentences short and hide only the key word.

#Both directions

Each card is tested one way. Knowing that perro means “dog” doesn’t mean you can come up with perro when you need the word. If you need both, make two cards:

Askesis doesn’t create reverse cards for you, so add the second card yourself; in a file it’s just another row. Give it a different front: in the same deck, a card with the same front counts as a duplicate when you import. Only add the reverse when you need it. Recognizing a word is often enough, and every card adds reviews.

#Hints and extras

Keep the back to what you grade yourself on and put everything else in the extra. Then it’s easy to tell whether you got it.

#Math, code and images

• Math: write LaTeX between \( … \) for inline math or \[ … \] for display math. Ask about one step or one identity per card, not a whole derivation.
• Code: use a fenced block with a language name for highlighting. Keep snippets to a few lines and ask about one thing, such as what a line prints or which method to call.
• Images and audio aren’t supported yet. Media in imported files is dropped. Describe the picture in words, or ask about the parts of a diagram one card at a time.

All the syntax: Card formatting.

#Bad → better

Spot a bad card during review? Press E to fix it on the spot. Cards you keep forgetting are tagged leech, and they are usually the best ones to rewrite (Leeches).