How we keep Memletics evidence-based#
Most advice about learning is delivered with great confidence and very little evidence. We’ve tried to do the opposite. Behind almost every claim in this manual is a source — and a judgement about how well current research actually supports it. This page explains how that works, and why we call it continuous evidence rather than a one-off bibliography.
Every claim, checked and rated#
When we say something helps your learning, we’d rather you didn’t simply take our word for it. So we break each page down into its individual claims, and for each one we ask: what does the best current research actually say? Then we rate the fit honestly:
- Supported — current research backs this.
- Mixed — real, but smaller, more conditional, or more contested than the popular version suggests.
- Superseded or refuted — the older claim hasn’t held up, so we’ve changed it or taken it out.
You can see this for yourself. Most pages carry an “evidence” link — follow it and you’ll find that page’s claims set out one by one, each with its rating and the studies behind it. Every source links through to our full reference list , where each study is listed once and shows every page that relies on it.
Continuous, not frozen#
Research moves. A finding that looked solid a few years ago can soften; a new meta-analysis can settle an old argument. So this isn’t a bibliography we wrote once and forgot about. We re-run the checks as new evidence lands, and when the science changes, the manual changes with it. That’s the point of the name: the evidence here is meant to be kept current, not just cited once.
What we’re watching#
Some areas are moving quickly, and we track them closely so the manual keeps up:
- Learning with AI — how tools like spaced-repetition apps and AI tutors genuinely help, and the real risk of letting them do the thinking you needed to do yourself.
- Attention in a connected world — what constant notifications and media-multitasking do to how well we learn.
- Refinements to the core methods — the ongoing research on exactly how to schedule retrieval and spacing for the best results.
As the evidence on these firms up, you’ll see it reflected here.
What we reject matters too#
Taking evidence seriously means being willing to say “that doesn’t work” — even about ideas that are popular, or that earlier thinking embraced. We keep a single page for exactly that: what doesn’t work , covering the learning myths and weak methods the evidence doesn’t support, and what to reach for instead.
Why we bother#
Honestly? Because a learning system that oversells itself is a poor advertisement for learning. If we’re asking you to put real effort into these methods, the least we can do is show our working. Follow any “evidence” link, and check us.