The steps
How to do the blurting method
To do the blurting method, you need your notes or your book, a blank sheet of paper, and two pens of different colors. One round takes about 15 minutes.
- Pick one small topic. One page of your notes is enough, or one heading in the book. A whole chapter is too much for one round.
- Read it once, slowly. Take about five minutes. Do not highlight, and do not copy anything out. Read it and try to follow it.
- Close the book and write everything you remember. Set a timer for five minutes. Write in any order, in short and messy lines. Spelling does not matter. When you get stuck, wait. A little more usually comes.
- Open the book and check with the second pen. Tick what is right. Cross out what is wrong, and write the right thing next to it. Add what is missing.
- Close the book and write the missed parts again. Write only the parts you got wrong or left out. Then come back to the same topic in a day or two, and do the whole round again.
An example
What is an example of the blurting method?
An example of the blurting method is the round below. We made it up for this page. Ben has a science test, and one small topic on it is the water cycle. His notes on it have 8 points. He reads them for five minutes, closes the notebook, and writes for five minutes.
What Ben wrote, with the notebook closed
- sun heats the sea, lakes, rivers
- water turns into vapor = evaporation
- vapor goes up, colder up there
- drops make clouds = precipitation
- rain and snow fall = condensation
- rivers take it back to the sea, starts again
What he added when he checked
- Swap two names: clouds forming is condensation, rain falling is precipitation.
- Add: plants give off water vapor too (transpiration).
- Add: some water runs over the land, some soaks into the ground.
| The point in his notes | First try | Two days later |
|---|---|---|
| The sun heats the water in seas, lakes and rivers. | Right | Right |
| The water turns into a gas called water vapor. This is evaporation. | Right | Right |
| Plants give off water vapor from their leaves too. This is transpiration. | Missed | Right |
| The water vapor rises, and the air gets colder higher up. | Right | Right |
| The cold turns the vapor back into tiny drops, and the drops make clouds. This is condensation. | Mixed up | Right |
| The water falls as rain, snow or hail. This is precipitation. | Mixed up | Right |
| Some of the water runs over the land into rivers. Some soaks into the ground. | Missed | Missed |
| Rivers carry the water back to the sea, and the cycle starts again. | Right | Right |
On the first try, Ben got 4 of the 8 points right. He mixed up 2: he had the right ideas, with the wrong names on them. He missed 2 completely. Before he checked, he felt sure about the names. That is why the check matters.
Two days later, Ben did the whole round again. This time he got 7 of the 8 points right. The one he missed went to the top of his list for the next round.
Try it
Try the blurting method right here
The box below is a place to do one round of the blurting method. Read your topic first. Then start the timer and write from memory. When you are done, open your notes and list what you missed.
Time left
5:00
What you type stays in this tab. It is not saved and it is not sent anywhere, so it is gone when you close or reload the page.
Then check
Nothing written yet. Write in the box until the timer ends or nothing more comes. Then open your notes.
Missed on this try
Your list of gaps shows up here after you check.
Why it works
Why does the blurting method work?
The blurting method works because it makes you pull the topic out of your own memory. That is called active recall. In studies, it has helped students remember more than reading the page again did.
In one experiment, college students read a science text. Some of them then did what blurting asks. They put the text away and wrote down as much as they could remember. Then they read it again, and wrote from memory again. A week later, they answered more questions correctly than students who had read the text four times (Karpicke and Blunt, 2011).
The page on active recall has more of the research, and a schedule for coming back to each topic. To check that you also understand a topic, try the Feynman technique, where you explain it in plain words.
The name
Where does the name blurting come from?
The name blurting comes from “to blurt something out”, which means to say it fast, without stopping to think. We could not find who first used the name for a way to study. A study guide from Birmingham City University, in England, says students talk about it on TikTok and YouTube.
What goes wrong
What mistakes make blurting not work?
Blurting stops working when you leave out the hard parts. Here are four mistakes, and what to do about each one.
| What goes wrong | What to do |
|---|---|
| You skip the check | A wrong line that you never check stays wrong. Always open the book at the end. |
| The topic is too big | If your list of missed parts is very long, cut the topic in half. |
| You look at the book while you write | Put the book out of reach until the timer ends. |
| You do a topic once and never again | Do the same topic again in a day or two. |
The test
How do you know blurting is working?
The test
On the second try, two days later, you write down more of the topic than you did on the first try
for three topics in a row.
A round of blurting is short, so it is easy to plan five rounds and do two. Later, it is hard to remember how many you really did.
A good way to check is to count your study time from what you write or say about your day. Most journaling apps ask how the day felt. They do not show how many hours of study the week really had.
One app built for this is Think in Numbers, a smart journaling app with time tracking built in.
You write or say your day in your own words, as it happens or all at once. The app reads what you wrote and counts the hours that went to each part of it: your study, breaks, sleep, your phone, and the time you never mentioned (shown as unaccounted). Then it shows those hours over days and weeks. So you can see how many hours of study each week really had, and on which days. Put the second try, two days later, on your to-do list. When you write that you did it, the app ticks it off.
1. You write your day
2. It counts the hours
- Science0m
- Work0m
- Sleep0m
- Unaccounted24h
3. It shows your week
Science this week: 0m
On 6 of 7 days. The gap is the day without it.
An example day and week.
For iPhone and Android. Try it on your own day before you pay.
Sources
Where the findings on this page come from.
The experiment and the study guide are linked below. We read both in full for this page. The example about the water cycle is our own.
- Karpicke, J. D. and Blunt, J. R. (2011). Retrieval Practice Produces More Learning than Elaborative Studying with Concept Mapping. Science, 331(6018), 772 to 775.
- Birmingham City University (read ). How to revise with the blurting method.
Keep reading.
- LearnAnswers about sleep, habits, study, people and work, in hours.
- InterleavingMix the kinds of problem you practice instead of doing one kind at a time. An example week, what a school study found, and a planner.
- Active recallRecalling instead of rereading: the evidence, and a schedule.
- The Feynman techniqueStudy by explaining: the four steps, and the research behind them.
- Where did my week go? calculatorEnter a typical day and see your week accounted and unaccounted.
- Time journalingThe method: write or say your day in your own words, then see it as hours.
Questions
Questions people ask.
What is the blurting method?
The blurting method is a way to study: you read a topic, close the book, and write down everything you can remember. Then you open the book again, check what you wrote, and fill in what you missed.
How long does the blurting method take?
One round of the blurting method on a small topic takes about 15 minutes: five to read, five to write from memory, and five to check and fill the gaps.
Is blurting the same as active recall?
Blurting is one way of doing active recall. Active recall means pulling what you learned out of your memory while the book is closed. Flashcards and practice questions are other ways of doing it.
Is there an app for the blurting method?
A sheet of paper and two pens are enough for blurting, and the box on this page works too. If you want an app, look for one that shows how much time you really spent studying, so you can see whether the rounds happened. One app built for this is Think in Numbers, a smart journaling app with time tracking built in. Think in Numbers counts your study hours from what you write or say about your day, and shows them week by week. In the app, each round can be a to-do, ticked off when your day says you did it.
Try it on my day.
Write today down in your own words, and see where the hours went.
For iPhone and Android. Try it on your own day before you pay.