Mind Mapping
(last update Mon, Mar 8, 2004)
In some textbooks, especially in the liberal arts, but also in professional and technical fields, it may be more productive to use mind-mapping techniques than question-answer reading notes for certain chapters in order to see certain types of relationships.

Why would I want to use mind-mapping techniques?

  1. Mind-mapping techniques take advantage of the visual learning skills of the brain, which many students, especially men, are very strong in.
  2. Mind-mapping can also make transfer to long-term memory easy because it uses both sides of the brain.
  3. What is mind-mapping and how do I make a mind-map?
  4. Mind-mapping is a way of taking reading notes that lets you "see" the relationships between ideas by laying them out in a very visual way, using balloons, bubbles, arrows, lines, and rough sketches.

Mind-maps use key words, not sentences, with the balloons, bubbles, and sketches, to get the main points of a chapter or part of a chapter. Mind maps are particularly useful for students in technical fields to
help in learning processes and procedures. Examples of these include how the internal combustion engine works, how to maintain compressors, how to build a staircase.

Mind maps can also be helpful in professional fields for processes, such as the criminal justice system from arrest to conviction, the process for dealing with child abuse victims, the process for putting out chemical fires.

Mind maps can help in the liberal arts also, for learning processes such as how the digestive system works, how a President is elected, how the stock market operates.

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