Ace
Short answer: the scribble study method (scribbling, often with your non-dominant hand, while you read or listen) has little direct evidence behind it. A related finding is much stronger: drawing what something means, as a way to learn it, reliably helps memory. If you like scribbling, use it to stay alert in a dull lecture; for exam revision, draw the idea from memory and check it against your notes.
What is the scribble study method?
The trend is simple: while you read a page or watch a lecture, you scribble continuously on a sheet of paper, often with your non-dominant hand. Fans say it stops their mind wandering and makes material stick. The hashtag #ScribblingStudyMethod had 216.9 million TikTok views when Educate Magazine looked at it, more than most other study hashtags it covered.
The same article quoted a revision expert who said it may keep some people engaged, but that there is "limited scientific evidence to support its effectiveness as an actual revision method". That is about right. No study we could find has tested the trend as it is shared. What does exist is research on two neighbouring things: doodling and drawing.
What the doodling research found
The study most often quoted is Andrade (2010). Forty people listened to a deliberately boring mock phone message and had to note who was coming to a party. Half of them shaded in printed shapes while they listened. The doodling group was better at the monitoring task and recalled 29% more on a surprise memory test afterwards.
Andrade suggested doodling might help by reducing daydreaming. That is the useful part for students: during a monotonous lecture, a low-effort hand activity may keep you just engaged enough to keep listening.
But notice the limits. This was one study, with forty people, on a boring audio message, and the doodles were shading in shapes, not scribbling with the wrong hand. It tells you doodling during dull listening may help you stay alert. It does not show that scribbling while you revise a textbook helps you learn the content.
Drawing is not the same as scribbling
The stronger evidence is for drawing what you are trying to learn. Wammes, Meade and Fernandes (2016) ran seven experiments in which people either drew or wrote out words. Drawn words were recalled better, and the benefit held up when they shortened the time and lengthened the lists. In a later review, Fernandes, Wammes and Meade (2018) reported that the effect extends to textbook definitions, and that drawing beat other strategies such as writing, visualising and even tracing.
The key difference: in these studies, the drawing was about the meaning of the material. You can't draw "osmosis" without thinking about what osmosis is. Random scribbling doesn't make you do that.
We cover the wider picture in our guide to how visualisation helps you study.
A version of scribbling worth trying
Keep the pen moving, but point it at the content:
- Read a section once, then close it.
- Sketch it from memory. A process as boxes and arrows, a structure with labels, a timeline, a quick graph. Ugly is fine.
- Check it against your notes. Add what you missed in a different colour.
- Redraw it tomorrow without looking. The gaps tell you what to revise.
This turns scribbling into retrieval practice, which has some of the best evidence in learning research. Roediger and Karpicke (2006) found that students who practised recalling material remembered substantially more a week later than students who reread it. It is also close to the blurting method, just with pictures instead of sentences.
When to skip it
- When you're reading something dense. Continuous scribbling splits your attention. If you are working through a hard proof or a long argument, give it your full attention.
- When the scribbling becomes the project. If you are spending more time making the page look good for a video than thinking about the topic, it has become decoration.
- When it replaces testing. A full page of scribbles can feel productive. The real check is whether you can answer questions on the topic without your notes.
For that last part, practice questions do the job. Ace turns your own slides and PDFs into practice questions. Where your file has diagrams, that can include label-the-diagram questions built from a screenshot of the diagram in your own file, so you can test the same pictures you have been sketching.
Frequently asked questions
Does the scribble study method actually work?
There is no direct research on the trend. One study found doodling during a boring audio message improved recall, and drawing the meaning of material reliably helps memory. Scribbling unrelated shapes while revising is not well supported.
Why scribble with your non-dominant hand?
Creators say it keeps the activity simple so it doesn't take over. We found no research testing the non-dominant hand part specifically.
Is doodling in lectures bad?
Not necessarily. Simple doodling during a monotonous lecture may help you stay alert. Doodling about the lecture content is even better.
What is the drawing effect?
The finding that people remember information better when they draw it than when they write it out, shown across many experiments by Wammes, Meade and Fernandes.
Sources
- Educate Magazine (2024). Are viral TikTok revision hacks any good?
- Andrade, J. (2010). What does doodling do? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24(1), 100–106.
- Wammes, J. D., Meade, M. E., & Fernandes, M. A. (2016). The drawing effect: Evidence for reliable and robust memory benefits in free recall. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 69(9), 1752–1776.
- Fernandes, M. A., Wammes, J. D., & Meade, M. E. (2018). The surprisingly powerful influence of drawing on memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 27(5), 302–308.
- Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255.
