How Screvi's Highlight Review System Works

Reading is an investment of your time and attention. But how much of that investment do you actually retain days or weeks later? For most of us, the answer is "not much."

Our memory naturally fades, biased towards forgetting information we don't actively reinforce.

Screvi is designed to combat this natural decay using the science of spaced repetition. Instead of letting your valuable highlights gather dust in an archive, Screvi intelligently brings them back to you at the precise moments you're most likely to forget them, transforming fleeting insights into long-term knowledge.

The Forgetting Curve: Why Timely Review is Crucial

Hermann Ebbinghaus's pioneering work on memory revealed the "forgetting curve": a stark illustration of how quickly we lose information over time if there's no review.

Screvi directly addresses this by scheduling reviews at increasing intervals, depending on the choices you make during your review sessions.

At the Heart of Screvi: The SM-2 Algorithm (Adapted for Your Reading)

Screvi's review engine is built upon a modified version of the SM-2 algorithm, a proven method originally developed for efficient flashcard learning. Here's how it works for your highlights:

Each highlight in Screvi has dynamic attributes that help the algorithm learn how well you know it:

• Ease Factor: This starts at 2.5 and is a core indicator of how difficult you find the highlight to recall. Your feedback after each review directly adjusts this number. If a highlight feels easy to remember, the ease factor decreases, leading to longer intervals. If it's a struggle, the ease factor increases, shortening the time until the next review.
• Next Review Date: This is the key output of the algorithm, determining when you'll see the highlight again. It's calculated using the highlight's ease factor and review count. To prevent multiple highlights becoming due on the exact same day, a touch of randomness (a factor between 0.8 and 1.2) is applied, smoothing out your review schedule.

Think of the review intervals expanding like this:

• After the first successful review: The next review might be in 1 day.
• After the second successful review: The interval grows, perhaps to 6 days.
• After the third successful review: The interval stretches further, potentially to 15 to 20 days, influenced by the ease factor you've assigned.

The easier you find a highlight, the faster the intervals lengthen, optimizing your learning time.

Smart Selection: Getting You the Right Highlights at the Right Time

Screvi doesn't just throw random highlights at you. It uses a intelligent, multi-layered system to prioritize which highlights appear in your review sessions:

1. Never Seen Before: Brand new highlights naturally take the top priority: they need their initial exposure to enter the spaced repetition cycle.
2. Overdue: Highlights that have passed their scheduled review date are prioritized to prevent knowledge decay.
3. Due Soon: Highlights scheduled for review within the next 3 days are included to stay ahead of the forgetting curve.

Within these primary groups, highlights are further ranked for optimal review:

• How Overdue: The longer a highlight has been overdue, the higher its priority.
• Review Count: Highlights with fewer reviews (meaning they are less solidified in memory) are generally prioritized.
• Ease Factor: Highlights with a lower ease factor (those you've indicated are harder) are brought back sooner.
• Randomness: A final layer of randomness ensures variety even among highlights with similar attributes.

To keep your review sessions diverse and engaging, Screvi limits the number of highlights from any single source (like a book or article) to a maximum of 3 per batch.

Your Daily Review Flow

Screvi structures your review experience into manageable batches:

• When you're eligible for a review (meaning you have more than 10 total highlights and no active batch), Screvi generates a review batch of up to 10 highlights.
• This batch is stored and remains available for 24 hours, forming the basis for your daily review opportunities, whether through email reminders or within the app.
• If a batch isn't completed within 24 hours, it expires, and the highlights return to the general queue to be rescheduled.
• Need a quick review outside the scheduled batches? You can always trigger an "instant review" session on demand.

Your Feedback Shapes Your Learning

Every interaction you have with a highlight during review provides valuable feedback that refines Screvi's algorithm for your personal learning style:

• Show more: You found this highlight important. Screvi notes this and will show it to you again relatively soon.
• Show less: This highlight was not important or not relevant. Screvi will show it less often.
• Favorite: You've flagged this as particularly important. Screvi notes this and also decreases the ease factor, ensuring you see it again relatively soon.
• Skip: You're not ready to review this highlight right now or you don't have a particular opinion on it. Screvi records the interaction but doesn't adjust the difficulty, rescheduling it for a future batch.
• Discard: You no longer want to review this highlight. Screvi removes it from your review queue entirely.

These simple actions personalize the spaced repetition algorithm over time, making it increasingly effective for you.

Staying Focused: Eligibility for Review

Screvi aims to support your learning without becoming a burden. The review prompt appears only when:

• You have a meaningful number of highlights (more than 10 total) to ensure there's enough material for effective spaced repetition.
• There isn't already an active review batch waiting for you, preventing notification overload.

This ensures that when Screvi prompts you to review, it's a valuable opportunity to reinforce your learning.

Screvi: Making Memory Automatic

Screvi leverages a personalized spaced repetition engine, adapting the well-regarded SM-2 algorithm, to transform how you retain information from your reading.

Every review strengthens your memory pathways. Every interaction fine-tunes the system to your individual learning needs. Screvi works in the background, ensuring the most important ideas resurface at the optimal time, effortlessly building lasting retention.

All you have to do, is show up and review your highlights. Screvi will take care of the rest.