We're the team behind Flips, a flashcard app built on the forgetting curve. Plenty of people are sold on flashcards as a study method but freeze at the first step: “What am I actually supposed to put on a card?” It's a fair worry. A badly built card wastes every review you ever do with it, while a well-built one makes the word fall into place almost on its own. The good news is that writing good cards comes down to a few simple principles.
The core idea: a flashcard exists to make you retrieve one specific answer. Everything about how you write it should serve that single goal. Let's walk through what that means in practice.
One item per card
The most common mistake is cramming. You meet a word with three meanings and a couple of related forms, and you try to stuff it all onto one card. The result is a card you can never cleanly pass or fail: you get part of it, miss another part, and your brain never gets a clear signal about what to strengthen.
Split it up. If a word has three distinct meanings worth knowing, that's potentially three cards, each asking for one thing. A card should have exactly one correct answer so that “I got it” and “I missed it” are unambiguous. Small, single-purpose cards feel like more cards, but each review is sharper, and the whole set is easier to schedule and to focus where you're weak.
Make the question and answer unmistakable
A card has a prompt side and an answer side, and your job is to make the prompt force one clear act of recall. Vague prompts — just a lone word with no direction — let you answer differently each time, which trains nothing. Decide what you're testing: the meaning of the word, its spelling, its translation, the term for a definition — and write the prompt so only that answer fits.
A useful test: cover the answer and ask whether you could grade yourself honestly. If the prompt is so loose that almost anything counts, tighten it. And keep the answer side lean — the one thing you're trying to remember, plus only what's needed to confirm it, not a paragraph of notes you'll never read mid-review.
Use examples and images to give the word a hook
Bare words are hard to hold because they have nothing to attach to. A short example sentence that shows the word in real use gives your memory a context to grab — you remember the scene, and the word rides along with it. An image can do the same job even faster for concrete things. The rule is restraint: one good example or one clear image per card. Pile on more and you're back to cramming, with the actual answer buried.
This is exactly the kind of card-making Flips is built to support. You create your own decks card by card, keeping each card to one item with a clean prompt and answer, and add an example where it helps. Once a card exists, the hard part is handled for you: based on Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve, Flips schedules each card's review individually — cards you get right get longer intervals, while ones you miss come back sooner — and you answer them in Card Mode by recalling then flipping, or in Quiz Mode by choosing from four options. Built-in decks for English, Spanish, Chinese and more are there too if you'd rather start from those, with review reminders, free on iOS and Android.
So the answer to “what goes on a card?” is short: one item, one clear question, one clear answer, and a single hook to anchor it. Build cards that way and every review you do afterward pays off — which is the whole point of making them in the first place.
Flips
The flashcard app that shows you words right before you forget them. Review timing managed automatically by the forgetting curve. Free to start.
Learn more about FlipsFrequently Asked Questions
How much should I put on one card?
As little as possible — ideally one item with one correct answer. If a word has several meanings worth knowing, make several cards rather than cramming them onto one, so each review gives a clear pass-or-fail signal.
Should I add example sentences?
A short example helps a lot, because it gives an abstract word a real context your memory can grab onto. Keep it to one example, though — more text just buries the answer you're trying to recall.
What makes a prompt good?
A good prompt forces one specific answer. Decide what you're testing — meaning, spelling, translation — and write it so only that answer fits. If you couldn't honestly grade yourself, the prompt is too vague.
Do I have to make all my own cards in Flips?
No. You can create your own decks card by card, but Flips also includes built-in decks for English, Spanish, Chinese and more. Either way, each card's review timing is scheduled for you by the forgetting curve.