Use These Fonts to Help You Remember What You’re Learning

While I generally recommend taking notes by hand , there are some benefits to modernizing your practice and keeping them on a computer. One way digital notes can really help you remember what you’re studying is by paying attention to the fonts you use.

I took this advice to heart last year and spent the second semester writing down notes on research methods for unusual fonts that were still fairly easy to read—and it seemed to actually help me remember more, so I looked at how deep font research went. goes for memory. It turns out that fonts can be useful in different ways.

Use Times New Roman for Reading Comprehension

Between my 18 years of teaching and a decade of part-time work as a writing tutor, I often made jokes in what appears to be Times New Roman, size 12. Science suggests that in some cases this is actually a good thing: one University of Nebraska Omaha researcher found in 2019 that easy-to-read fonts such as Times New Roman helped study participants obtain a higher percentage of correct answers to reading comprehension questions. Their research found that in extended texts, Times New Roman is generally better at improving reading comprehension, so if you have a large piece of content to read, consider copying and pasting it into a Word document and making it TNR.

Use more unique fonts to enhance reading retention

There’s a difference between understanding what you read and remembering it, and that’s where the trickier, harder-to-read fonts come in. Some of the best research on font-related disfluency—or “the metacognitive experience of difficulty associated with a cognitive task”—was published in 2010 and is still cited by researchers studying the effects of fonts. This study , conducted by researchers from Princeton and Indiana University, included two studies that ultimately found that harder-to-read fonts, such as Haettenschweiler, Monotype Corsiva, or Comic Sans Italicized, helped participants remember more material and perform better on real-life exams. classes. In short, your brain has to work a little harder to read these fonts, so you put in more effort and retain the content a little better.

When I tried this method last year, I chose Pacifico, a looping cursive font I found in Google Docs, and used it to highlight vocabulary words in my notes. Switching between fonts while typing helped me stay engaged, and listening to vocabulary words to write in Pacifico font helped too. When I was reviewing notes before tests, I had to stop and focus on the Pacifico vocabulary words to read them, and I couldn’t mute them like I usually did with good old Time New Roman. However, the authors of the 2010 study caution against using a font that is too difficult to read, as it will render the entire attempt completely useless. But Pacifico and Monotype Corsiva, an italic-serif font, are unusual enough to require a little more effort without being too frustrating.

Don’t get hung up on larger fonts for memory

While font types have been shown to make some difference when it comes to storing information, there is also an idea called the “font size effect,” which the researchers say is “a metamemory illusion in which items in larger font produce higher learning scores (JOL) but not better memory compared to items in smaller font.” One publication did find that judgments of learning and memory accuracy were higher after people read articles in larger font, but this was always compared to when they read articles in smaller font.

Essentially, if you have notes where some items are in larger font than others, you may be able to remember everything that was in larger font a little better, but if you make the entire document a “larger” size, it won’t be very healthy. , because everything is relative. Focus less on font size in general, and also keep in mind that no matter what font you use, your learning methods, stress levels, amount of study time, and environment will also play a role in your retention, so change everything to Monotype Corsiva won’t solve every problem. It’s just one small tool in a much larger set.