Isolated facts are unretrievable facts
A fact with no connections has exactly one route to it, and if that route fails under exam pressure — which it will — the fact is gone. A fact with six connections has six routes. You can arrive at it from the mechanism, from a consequence, from an example, from what it contradicts.
Elaboration is simply the deliberate manufacture of those routes. Every 'why' you answer builds another one.
The questions that do the work
- Why is this true? The default. Do not accept 'because the textbook says'.
- What would happen if it weren't? Frequently more illuminating than the fact itself.
- How does this connect to the thing I learned last week? Cross-links are the strongest kind.
- **What's an example — and what's a *non*-example?** The boundary is where the understanding is.
- Why is it this and not the obvious alternative? This is usually the actual exam question.
The failure mode
Asking 'why' and then immediately reading the answer. That is not elaboration, it is reading. You have to *attempt* the answer first — see the generation effect — and only then check. The attempt is the technique; the checking is just admin.