How to use Anki
Brought to you by KIN Academic Support :)
Getting Set Up
To download Anki, you can use this link: https://apps.ankiweb.net/ and then select your device and version that you wish to download.
Once downloaded, you should find that your Anki looks something like this:
3. To create a new deck, you can press the create deck button at the bottom which you can name according to what you want to study. You can also drag a previous deck into a new deck to help organize and divide your content.
4. To adjust the deck, you can navigate to the gear on the right side and then select option. You will then see categories like “Daily Limits” and “Insertion Order”. To avoid limits on reviewing and creating cards, you can change it to the example below.
5. You can now begin to add cards!
Making Basic Cards
To begin to add cards, press “Add” along the top bar. A new tab should pop up
2. When choosing card type, “Basic” and “Basic ++” work as your classic front and backside Q-card, whereas “Basic Reversed” will create 2 cards, where the front and backside are switched. There is also the card “Basic (type in the answer)”, which allows you to type in an answer.
3. Once you have created your cards, you are free to press the deck you’ve added them to in the main menu and begin studying!
4. When studying the cards, you will see that there is no “next card” option, instead various buttons with corresponding times. Depending on which option you choose, the card will either reappear at different times or be finished studying, which is particularly helpful.
5. If you finish studying and want to study the cards again, click “Browse” on the top bar. Once in the browse menu, you can select the deck on the left and then click and drag to select the cards. Right click and then select “Forget” and the cards will reappear.
6. In this menu, you can also choose to randomize the cards in a deck, by clicking “Reposition” and then selecting “Randomize Order”. Good luck!!
Making Cloze Cards
These cards use the “Cloze Test” which is a type of study method involving masking out a portion of text and the participant has to fill it in. Cloze cards on Anki will block out part of a sentence/phrase that you can reveal after clicking the space bar again. Follow the steps below to start making cloze cards!
In the top bar, press “add” and you will be taken to a new tab. In this window, press the button that says “type,” and select the “cloze” option. Press “choose” at the bottom of the screen to confirm the card type.
2. Within the text box, input the sentence/phrase you want to block out a portion of.
3. Select/highlight the parts of text you want to be masked and hold the following keys: Ctrl+ Alt + c. The text will be inputted into special brackets and the text after the second colon will be masked.
4. If you want to make multiple cloze cards with the same text, then you can highlight the other word(s) in the same text box and press the same keys. The code will look the same as the example photo but with a new number after the c (i.e. c2, c3… cn)
5. This is what the cloze cards will look like while studying before you reveal the answer:
6. And after revealing the answer…
Making Image Occlusion Cards
These cards work best if you are studying images that have words/captions around them or if you are studying a diagram with different steps (such as the dreaded cellular respiration cycle). With occlusion cards, you can upload an image (JPEG or PNG) to Anki and then put a block over the parts of the image you want masked.
Within the same card “type” menu, select the “Image Occlusion” option.
You will be given the option to either:
a. Select Image: Upload an image from your computer’s files
b. Paste image from Clipboard: Upload an image that is in your computer’s clipboard/an image you most recently took a screenshot of.
Based on whichever option you choose, a menu on the left side of the Anki window will pop up. There are various tools to pick from such as:
a. Rectangle/oval: This tool will input one of these shapes onto your image and you can resize or move the shape wherever you want.
b. Polygon: This shape tool works like the rectangle/oval, but you can create your own shape based on what parts of the image you want masked.
c. Textbox: This tool allows you to add text that will show up on your card when studying the image. This can be helpful when you have extra notes about a diagram, but it’s not in a prewritten caption
d. Eye: This tool is located in the toolbar row and allows you to see the text/parts of the image that you masked. This only works when you are editing the card
e. Trash: This tool is located in the toolbar row and allows you to delete shapes or text that you inputted on the Anki application. To delete unwanted masks, you can click on the shape to “select” it, and then press the “trash” icon.
4. If you want to adjust how these cards show up in your study deck, you can click the icon in the horizontal toolbar beside the mouse. You have the option to either use all the occlusions you added on the image and get tested on one mask at a time, or you can have one occlusion pop-up per card. I recommend playing around with both options and seeing what works best for you!
5. When studying the occlusion cards, they will show up based on the setting you chose in step 4 and which parts of the image you masked.
For further instructions about image occlusion cards, check out Stephen P. Ray’s video tutorial below:
