Lines
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Verbatim
Version 1.0 beta
from Grey Matters
Memorize pieces word for word, including:
monologues, poems,
presentations, scripture,
scripts, song lyrics, speeches
The Memorize Text section is best viewed in a landscape orientation.
The Recall Text section is best viewed in a landscape orientation.
Verbatim WebApp
Recommended:
iPhone or iPod Touch running OS 3.0+ with Mobile Safari
Internet connection
Alternatives:
Any WebKit-based browser with HTML5 and CSS3 capabilities
Internet connection
XML Document Creation
Required:
A text editor capable of saving documents in UTF-8 format
Internet connection
Server space (for hosting the XML document itself)
Recommended:
A desktop or laptop computer
Verbatim is designed to help you memorize a piece of text word for word. Such pieces include, among others:
* monologues
* poems
* presentations for work/school
* religious scripture
* scripts
* song lyrics
* speeches
Verbatim does this by helping you work through the following 5-step process:
1. Find a piece you value
2. Build the piece into a file
3. Start Verbatim
4. Memorize the piece
5. Recall the piece
Each of these steps will be described in detail in the corresponding section of this manual.
Before you even start memorizing, a piece should have some worth to you. If it doesn't, memorizing the piece word for word is a waste of time. Ask yourself, what is the nature of the piece, and why am I memorizing it?
Are you memorizing your own original speech introducing your company's new widget? The value could be the financial future of your job and your company.
Are you reciting a historical speech for school? The the speech's grade, and presumably your final grade, would be the major value.
A poem or a piece of religious scripture whose meaning find inspiring could also be a value.
Make sure and read through the piece first. Get the feel, the rhythm, and start understanding the meaning of the piece.
If the piece is your own original work, then you've (hopefully) researched your work well. If the piece isn't your own work, you should still research it. Ask yourself questions such as:
* When was it written and what were the circumstances?
* Who is the author and why did they write it?
* Are there any words or phrases you don't know or that are used in unexpected ways?
* What is the philosophy of the piece?
The better answers you can give to all these questions, the easier it will be to remember the piece and deliver an effective recitation. The internet makes more knowledge available on any piece (or just about anything else) that you care to memorize, so take advantage of this knowledge.
Memorization and understanding can build on each other in surprising ways, so this step should not be ignored or taken lightly.
In order for Verbatim to help you memorize one or more pieces, it needs to access the piece(s) in a format it can understand. In this section of the manual, you'll learn how to create just such a file. Creating the file yourself can also be a first step in the memorizing of the piece.
The type of file that's used is a special type of text file known as an XML (Extensible Markup Language) file.
You can create this file on your laptop/desktop either by using a text editor alone, or with the aid of the XML File Maker for Verbatim (remember to save it with the extension .xml).
To help you understand the structure, here's an example XML file for Verbatim containing Gelett Burgess' classic poem, The Purple Cow:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<txtsrc>
<item author="Gelett Burgess">
<title>Purple Cow</title>
<lines>
<line>I never saw a purple cow</line>
<line>I never hope to see one;</line>
<line>But I can tell you, anyhow,</line>
<line>I'd rather see than be one!</line>
</lines>
</item>
</txtsrc>
Important: Note that all the text between the < and > symbols is in lower-case (with the exception of items in quotes). If your tags contain any upper-case letters, Verbatim may not be able to properly read and/or use the file!
What does all this mean? Let's go through the file step by step, so you can understand it.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
In XML, the text immediately following the < symbol is known as a "tag". For example, the above would be referred to as an xml tag. This first line simply lets the program reading this file (Verbatim, in this case) know what type of format to expect for the rest of the file.
<txtsrc>
</txtsrc>
These tags let Verbatim know that all the information about all of the included pieces will be located between these two tags.
Note: When you see a tag starting with </, it simply means that the portion of the file to which the tag refers is ending.
<item author="Gelett Burgess">
</item>
The item tag lets Verbatim know where an individual piece begins and ends.
The author of the piece can be included as part of the item tag, but it's not required. Without the author, the opening tag would simply read: <item>
<title>Purple Cow</title>
These tags simply identify the title of the individual piece.
<lines>
</lines>
All the individual lines of a given piece are contained in-between these two tags
<line>I never saw a purple cow</line>
<line>I never hope to see one;</line>
<line>But I can tell you, anyhow,</line>
<line>I'd rather see than be one!</line>
The line tag lets Verbatim identify the individual lines. Most forms of punctuation are allowed, but avoid the underscore, which is used in the fill-in-the-blank recall method.
Important: Do not confuse the lines tag (with an S), which details where an entire group of lines is listed, with the line tag (with no S), which details only a single line.
Uploading
Once you have the file properly formatted and saved, it is time to place the file on a server that can be accessed with a standard web address. Usually, your ISP will offer server space as part of a paid web access package, and there are other sources available (paid and free) that will host your XML file for you. Whichever one you choose, you will need to follow their instructions for uploading.
When the file has been uploaded, don't forget to get its web address, so you'll be able to enter that information later in Verbatim. Your file hosting service's help file should tell you how to get the proper web address.
Line Tips
If you're using Verbatim on an iPhone or iPod Touch, a good rule of thumb is to keep the lines under 50 characters for viewing in landscape orientation, or 25 characters for portrait orientation.
For pieces that have lines that go on longer than this, you could break up the lines at other punctuation marks, such as commas, colons, semicolons, ellipses, or dashes.
When working in your text editor, it's best to use standard ASCII charaters, especially for the punctuation marks.
When typing ellipses, type them as three dots in a row next to the word (e.g. "word..."), and NOT with spaces in-between them (e.g. "word . . ."), to prevent Verbatim from treating them as different words.
If you find a piece that is too large for your iPhone or iPod Touch to load, try breaking it up into 2 or more separate XML files.
Multiple Pieces in 1 XML File
As mentioned earlier, the xml files can contain more than one piece. Keep in mind that all the pieces must be contained between the <txtsrc> and the </txtsrc> tags.
Once you have at least one single properly-structured piece, you can add a new piece by opening a new <item> tag immediately after the preceding piece's </item> (closing item) tag, and structuring it as you did the prior piece. For example, if we wanted to add Gelett Burgess' poem Confession to the burgess.xml document, the new version would look like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<txtsrc>
<item author="Gelett Burgess">
<title>Purple Cow</title>
<lines>
<line>I never saw a purple cow</line>
<line>I never hope to see one;</line>
<line>But I can tell you, anyhow,</line>
<line>I'd rather see than be one!</line>
</lines>
</item>
<item author="Gelett Burgess">
<title>Confession</title>
<lines>
<line>Ah, yes, I wrote the "Purple Cow"--</line>
<line>I'm sorry now I wrote it!</line>
<line>But I can tell you anyhow,</line>
<line>I'll kill you if you quote it.</line>
</lines>
</item>
</txtsrc>
The first time you load up Verbatim in Mobile Safari, the initial starting page will look like this, with only 3 options available:
In the Introduction section, clicking the Manual button will allow you to access this manual. Clicking the Video Tutorial button will bring up a YouTube video teaching how to use Verbatim.
In the Get Text section, you will load your file in 3 steps:
1. Click the Load XML File button.
2. Type or paste your XML file's web address in the Type XML File URL Here field.
3. Click the Submit button.
Assuming that the file is properly structured, the filename was correctly typed, and no other errors occured, Verbatim will return to the home page, display the new filename in the Current File: box, and the Use Text section will appear with 2 new selections.
The 2 new selections are the Memorize Text and Recall Text buttons, as shown below:
Each of these two new buttons will take you to their corresponding sections.
The use of the Memorize Text section is detailed in this manual, under 4. Memorizing the piece. The use of the Recall Text section is detailed in this manual, under 5. Recalling the piece.
Time-Saving Tips
When you first load up Verbatim itself in your browser, before loading in any files, bookmark the basic Verbatim web app itself in your bookmarks menu, and return to the main Verbatim page.
Once a file is successfully loaded in to Verbatim, the XML file's name will now be part of Verbatim's web address. Bookmark Verbatim to your iPhone's or iPod Touch's home screen at this point, and give the bookmark a name that reminds you of the XML file, such as "speeches" or "funny poems".
Once you've created a home screen bookmark, close your browser and start Verbatim from the home screen bookmark. The advantages are:
* The XML file will load itself, saving you a step.
* Verbatim will run in full screen mode.
* Verbatim will run faster.
Troubleshooting
If any errors occur, an alert box will notify you, and the Use Text section will not appear. The first thing to check is to make sure you typed in the correct address. If you copy and paste into your browser, you should see at least the title and lines of your xml file. If you file is not found, then you need to locate the correct web address and enter that as described above.
The other most common error is the incorrect formatting of the XML file itself. Make sure the file is structured as detailed in this manual under 2. Building the piece into a file. Once the corrections are made and the new file is uploaded to the same web address, try entering it again to get it to work.
An incorrectly formatted XML file won't always result in an error message. It may simply result in making the title unavailable in menus or lines being unavailable for memorizing and/or recalling.
Using The Interface
This first part of the page discusses how to use the interface. To learn the memory technique that is used, scroll down to the next section.
When you first open up the memorization section, the top section asks you for 2 settings. The first is the piece you wish to memorize, and the other is the number of lines you wish to memorize at a time.
Clicking on the button displaying the piece name will bring up a list of all the pieces contained in the XML file you provided on Verbatim's main page. From this list, you simply select the piece you wish to memorize. Initially, this will default to the first piece found in the XML file you supplied.
As explained below under Memorization Technique below, you will be working through the piece at anywhere from 1 to 6 lines of the piece at a time. Clicking on the button that states a number of lines willl let you choose an amount of lines in the is range. When starting to memorize a new piece you will always beging by selecting 1 Line, which is the default.
The Lines area contains the following sections:
Hide lines and Show lines
When the interface first appears you will see a button marked Hide lines. Clicking this button will simply hide the title and text that are currently displayed, and the button itself will change to read Show lines. Clicking Show lines will display the title and text of the piece again, and the button will again read as Hide lines.
Title
The Title section displays the title of the piece, the author, and which lines of the piece are being displayed. If no author was noted in the original XML file, the author is simply listed as Unknown. The line information area include the lines at which you're currently located and the total number of lines, such as: Lines: 10-12 of 20
Text
This is where the chosen numbers of lines appear. If you're at the end of the piece, there may be 1 or more lines marked with 3 dashes (---). These dashes simply indicate that a particular line occurs after the end of the piece.
At the bottom, the toolbar features four arrow buttons. These arrow buttons are used to move back and forth through the piece as described here:
(Jump to first lines)
Clicking on this button will take you to the beginning of the piece, displaying the number of lines you selected. For example, if you selected 3 Lines, this button will display the first 3 lines of the piece. When you're at the beginning of the piece, this button will be grayed out and inactive.
(Go to previous lines)
This button will move back in the text by the number of lines you specified. For example, if you specified 3 Lines, this control will move back 3 lines. When you're at the beginning of the piece, this button will be grayed out and inactive.
(Go to next lines)
This button will move ahead in the text by the number of lines you specified. For example, if you specified 3 Lines, this control will move the text ahead by 3 lines. When you're at the end of the piece, this button will be grayed out and inactive.
(Jump to last lines)
Clicking on this button will take you to the end of the piece, displaying the number of lines you selected. When you're at the end of the piece, this button will be grayed out and inactive.
Note: The arrow buttons in the toolbar also function in this same manner in the Recall Text section.
Memorization Technique
The basic approach to memorizing the piece itself can be summed up in 7 steps:
a. Start by thinking of 1 line of the poem as a "unit", and start with the first line of the piece as your first unit.
b. Read the unit of the piece out loud while looking at it.
c. Hide that unit of the piece from view, and try to recite it from memory.
d. Bring that unit of the piece back into view. Did you recite it correctly? If so, continue to step e. If not, go back to step b.
e. Move to the next unit, and repeat steps b-e, until you've worked through the entire piece a unit at a time.
f. Now, increase the size of the unit by 1 line (e.g. 1 line increases to 2 lines, 2 lines increases to 3 lines, and so on).
g. If you've already gone through the entire piece with a unit of 6 lines, stop. Otherwise, begin with the first unit of the piece again, and repeat steps b-g with the increased unit size.
In short, you're going to read through the piece and try and recite 1 line from memory, and then move on to the next line, which is repeated until you reach the end. This process will then be repeated 2 lines at a time, then 3 lines, 4 lines, 5 lines, and ultimately 6 lines at a time.
Using Verbatim to help you through this process is simple. Start by choosing the piece and set the number of lines to 1 Lines (as described above).
Below the Hide lines button, you will see the title/author/line information. Below that, the first line itself.
Read the given line aloud. Now click Hide lines, and try and recite the line. Click Show lines, and check if you got the entire line right. If so, click on the down arrow in the bottom toolbar to move to the next line. If not, try reading, hiding, reciting, and checking the line again.
When you do move on to the next line, don't even think about the previous line(s). At each stage, you're going to focus only on the current line(s).
Work through the piece line by line in this way, until you reach the final line. Next, select 2 Lines. The piece will be reset to the first 2 lines, and you can now work through the same process 2 lines at a time. Keep going, increasng the number of line by 1 each time, until you've gone through the piece 6 lines at a time.
Even if you find you've memorized the piece before you get to 6 lines, I still suggest that you try and recite it 6 lines at a time, as that will help lock it in your memory more effectively.
You may not believe this, but once you've gone through this process, you've remembered the piece as a whole. The next step is to move on to the Recall Text section.
Once you've gone through the process of memorizing the piece, you can test your recall of it by having Verbatim give you minimal cues and challenging you to recall it from memory.
The Select Piece and Cueing Method... area functions in a very similar manner to the Select Piece and # of Lines... area in the Memorization section. There are a few differences, though.
Choosing a piece to recall works by clicking on the piece name, and selecting your chosen piece, just as in the memorization section.
Instead of choosing lines, however, the other menu will ask you to choose a method by which the lines of the piece will be cued (in other words, what kind of hints you can choose). There are three options: First Letters, Word Lengths, and Fill In The Blanks.
If you choose First Letters, only the first letters of each word (as well as the first letter following an apostrophe) will be displayed.
Note: In the font used for Verbatim, a small L and a capital I look very much alike (Compare: l to I), which can make First Letters a bit more challenging.
Choosing Word Lengths causes every letter to be replaced by the letter X (with upper and lower case letters left intact), and any numbers to be replaced by the number 9. Any punctuation remains exactly as in the original piece.
The Fill In The Blanks selection adds random blanks into every line that contains 3 or more words. Any punctuation remains exactly as in the original piece.
Title
The section that contains the title, author, and lines information is very similar to that in the Memorize Text section, but in the Recall Text section, it also contains a score.
Normally, this score will be set to "0 of 0 (0.00%)" when you start. The first number in the score is the number of lines you've correctly recalled. The second number is the total number of lines you've tried, and the percentage is your success rate. For example, if you've tried to guess the content of 2 lines, but only got 1 of the lines correct, your score would read as "Score: 1 of 2 (50.00%)".
If you chose Fill In The Blanks and your piece contains 1 or more lines that only contains 1 or 2 words, each such line will automatically add 1 point to your starting score, as there is nothing hidden in these lines.
Text
When you first come in to the Recalling Text section, or whenever you make a new selection, your score will be reset, and each line that is cued by your chosen method will display a magnifying glass icon (
) directly above it. Only up to 5 lines of a given piece will be displayed at a time.
To move through the rest of the piece, the arrows in the toolbar are used in the same manner as in the Memorize Text section.
Scoring
The scoring in this section is done completely on the honor system. You can cheat easily and have Verbatim display a 100% score. However, since the purpose of Verbatim is to assist you in memorizing a piece of text word for word, you would really only be cheating yourself.
For each line in the piece that has a magnifying glass icon above it, look at the cue and try and recall the line. When you think you've got it, click on the magnifying glass. The full text of the line will be revealed, and the magnifying glass icon will be replaced by two other icons: a green "plus" icon (
) above the text and a red "minus" icon (
) below it.
If you got the text correct, click the green "plus" icon, and 1 point will be added to your score.
If you didn't recall the text correctly, click the red "minus" icon (no points are added to your score).
Each time you click on a plus or minus icon, your score will be updated in the title information area.
When you've gone through every line of the piece, an alert window will come up and notify you of your final score. Clicking OK on this alert window will close it, and will leave the piece with the plus and minus icons just as you set them, so that you can go through them and study the lines you missed.
Restarting
Each time you make a new selection in the Select Piece and Cueing Method... area, the score will be reset to "0 of 0 (0.00%)", and the piece will return to the first line, so you can move to another piece, or another cueing method with little trouble.
If you wish to retry the same piece with the same cueing method, simply change the cueing method to a different one, then reset it to the one you wish to use again, and your score will be reset to "0 of 0 (0.00%)", and you can try again.