Using Acronymic Sentences to Remember Information

Creating an acronymic sentence is a good strategy to use when you have to remember information in a certain order. An acronymic sentence is a sentence that is created using the first letter of each piece of information to be remembered.

Here is how to create an acronymic sentence.

  • Write each piece of information you have to remember.
  • Underline the first letter of each piece of information. If there is more than one word in a piece of information, underline the first letter of the most important word.
  • Write a sentence using words that begin with the underlined letters.

Acronymic SentencesMy (Mercury) very (Venus) earthy (Earth) mother (Mars) just (Jupiter) served (Saturn) us (Uranus) nine (Neptune) pizzas (Pluto)” is an acronymic sentence that students through the years have used to remember the order of planets around our sun, from closest to farthest. If you accept recent evidence that Pluto is not a planet, you can use “My very earthy mother just served us noodles.”

Here are the five most populous cities in Indiana shown in order from highest to lowest: Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Evansville, South Bend, Gary. Here is an acronymic sentence you can use to remember these cities in the order shown.

“Insects from everywhere seem gross.”

Try to form an acronymic sentence that is funny or has a personal meaning for you. You will find the sentence easier to remember if you do this. When you remember the acronymic sentence you create, each word in the sentence will help you remember the piece of information it represents (for example, “Insects” represents “Indianapolis”).

Creating acronymic sentences is an effective and fun way to remember information.