mind mapping

Mind Mapping is an important technique that improves the way you take notes, and supports and enhances your creative problem solving. By using Mind Maps, you can quickly identify and understand the structure of a subject and the way that pieces of information fit together, as well as recording the raw facts contained in normal notes. More than this, Mind Maps provide a structure which encourages creative problem solving, and they hold information in a format that your mind will find easy to remember and quick to review.
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Popularized by Tony Buzan, Mind Maps abandon the list format of conventional note taking. They do this in favor of a two-dimensional structure. A good Mind Map shows the 'shape' of the subject, the relative importance of individual points and the way in which one fact relates to other.



Mind Maps are more compact than conventional notes, often taking up one side of paper. This helps you to make associations easily. If you find out more information after you have drawn the main Mind Map, then you can easily integrate it with little disruption.



Mind Maps are also useful for:

summarizing information
consolidating information from different research sources
thinking through complex problems, and
presenting information that shows the overall structure of your subject
Mind Maps are also very quick to review, as it is easy to refresh information in your mind just by glancing at one.



Mind Maps can also be effective mnemonics. Remembering the shape and structure of a Mind Map can provide the cues necessary to remember the information within it. They engage much more of the brain in the process of assimilating and connecting facts than conventional notes.



Drawing Basic Mind Maps
This site was researched and planned using Mind Maps. They are too large to publish here, however part of one is shown below. This shows research into time management skills:





Figure 1: Part of an Example Mind Map



To make notes on a subject using a Mind Map, draw it in the following way:

Write the title of the subject in the center of the page, and draw a circle around it. This is shown by the circle marked 1 in the figure 1.
For the major subject subheadings, draw lines out from this circle. Label these lines with the subheadings. These are shown by the lines marked 2 in figure 1.
If you have another level of information belonging to the subheadings above, draw these and link them to the subheading lines. These are shown by the lines marked 3 in figure 1.
Finally, for individual facts or ideas, draw lines out from the appropriate heading line and label them. These are shown by the lines marked 4 in figure 1.
As you come across new information, link it in to the Mind Map appropriately.

A complete Mind Map may have main topic lines radiating in all directions from the center. Sub-topics and facts will branch off these, like branches and twigs from the trunk of a tree. You do not need to worry about the structure produced, as this will evolve of its own accord.



Note that the idea of numbered 'levels' in Figure 1 is only used to help show how the Mind Map was created. All we are showing is that major headings radiate from the center, with lower level headings and facts branching off from the higher level headings.



While drawing Mind Maps by hand is appropriate in many cases, software tools like MindGenius improve the process by helping to you to produce high quality Concept Maps, which can easily be edited and redrafted.



Improving your Mind Maps
Your Mind Maps are your own property: once you understand how to make notes in the Mind Map format, you can develop your own conventions to take them further. The following suggestions may help to increase their effectiveness:


Use single words or simple phrases for information: Most words in normal writing are padding, as they ensure that facts are conveyed in the correct context, and in a format that is pleasant to read. In your own Mind Maps, single strong words and meaningful phrases can convey the same meaning more potently. Excess words just clutter the Mind Map.
Print words: Joined up or indistinct writing can be more difficult to read.
Use color to separate different ideas:
This will help you to separate ideas where necessary. It also helps you to visualize of the Mind Map for recall. Color also helps to show the organization of the subject.
Use symbols and images:
Where a symbol or picture means something to you, use it. Pictures can help you to remember information more effectively than words.
Using cross-linkages:
Information in one part of the Mind Map may relate to another part. Here you can draw in lines to show the cross-linkages. This helps you to see how one part of the subject affects another.
Key points:

Mindmapping is an extremely effective method of taking notes. Mind Maps show not only facts, but also the overall structure of a subject and the relative importance of individual parts of it. They help you to associate ideas and make connections that might not otherwise make.



If you do any form of research or note taking, try experimenting with Mind Maps. You will find them surprisingly effective!

Cognitive maps, mental maps, mind maps, cognitive models, or mental models are a type of mental processing, or cognition, composed of a series of psychological transformations by which an individual can acquire, code, store, recall, and decode information about the relative locations and attributes of phenomena in their everyday or metaphorical spatial environment. Here, 'cognition' can be used to refer to the mental models, or belief systems, that people use to perceive, contextualize, simplify, and make sense of otherwise complex problems. As they have been studied in various fields of science, these mental models are often referred to, variously, as cognitive maps, scripts, schemata, and frames of reference.

Put more simply, cognitive maps are a way we use to structure and store spatial knowledge, allowing the "mind's eye" to visualize images in order to reduce cognitive load, and enhance recall and learning of information. This type of spatial thinking can also be used as a metaphor for non-spatial tasks, where people performing non-spatial tasks involving memory and imaging use spatial knowledge to aid in processing the task.

These can be abstract, flat or spatial representations of Cognitive spaces. When these Cognitive Spaces are combined they can form a Cognitive Panorama. We can distinguish cognitive maps or cognitive spaces as being either "workbenches of the mind" (Baars) or "externally related workbenches of the mind" (Benking) as representations of the inside or outside.

The oldest known formal method of using spatial locations to remember data is the "method of loci". This method was originally used by students of rhetoric in Ancient Rome when memorizing speeches. To use it one must first memorize the appearance of a physical location (for example, the sequence of rooms in a building). When a list of words, for example, needs to be memorized, the learner visualizes an object representing that word in one of the pre-memorized locations. To recall the list, the learner mentally "walks through" the memorized locations, noticing the objects placed there during the memorization phase.

Cognitive maps may also be represented and assessed on paper or screen through various practical methods such as a concept map, sketch map, spider diagram, or any variety of spatial representation.


A mental model is an explanation in someone's thought process for how something works in the real world. It is a kind of internal symbol or representation of external reality, hypothesised to play a major part in cognition. The idea is believed to have been originated by Kenneth Craik in his 1943 book The Nature of Explanation. After the early death of Craik in a bicycle accident, the idea was not elaborated on until much later. Two books, both titled Mental Models, appeared in 1983 [1]. One was by Philip Johnson-Laird, a psychology professor at Princeton University. The other was a collection of articles edited by Dedre Gentner and Albert Stevens. See Mental Models (Gentner-Stevens book). Since then there has been much discussion and use of the idea in human computer interaction and usability by people such as Donald Norman and by Steve Krug in his book Don't Make Me Think. Walter Kintsch and Teun A. van Dijk, using the term situation model (in their book Strategies of Discourse Comprehension, 1983), showed the relevance of mental models for the production and comprehension of discourse. These are just a couple of examples among many, many others


A mind map (or mind-map) is a diagram used to represent words and ideas linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. It is used to generate, visualize, structure and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, and decision making.

It is an image-centered diagram that represents semantic or other connections between portions of information. By presenting these connections in a radial, non-linear graphical manner, it encourages a brainstorming approach to any given organizational task, eliminating the hurdle of initially establishing an intrinsically appropriate or relevant conceptual framework to work within.

A mind map is similar to a semantic network or cognitive map but there are no formal restrictions on the kinds of links used.

Most often the map involves images, words, and lines. The elements are arranged intuitively according to the importance of the concepts and they are organized into groupings, branches, or areas. The uniform graphic formulation of the semantic structure of information on the method of gathering knowledge, may aid recall of existing memories.


Scholarly research on mind maps
Buzan (1991) claims that the mind map is a vastly superior note taking method because it does not lead to the alleged "semi-hypnotic trance" state induced by the other note forms. Buzan also claims that the mind map utilizes the full range of left and right human cortical skills, balances the brain, taps into the 99% of your unused mental potential, and taps into the intuition (which he calls "superlogic"). There has been research conducted on the technique which suggests that such claims may actually be marketing hype based on misconceptions about the brain and the cerebral hemispheres. [citation needed]

There are benefits to be gained by applying a wide range of graphic organizers, and it follows that the mind map, specifically, is limited to only a few learning tasks. Research by Farrand, Hussain, and Hennessy (2002) found that the mind map technique had a limited but significant impact on recall only, in undergraduate students (a 10% increase over baseline for a 600-word text only) as compared to preferred study methods (a −6% increase over baseline). This improvement was only robust after a week for those in the mind map group, and there was a significant decrease in motivation compared to the subjects' preferred methods of note taking. They suggested that learners preferred to use other methods because using a mind map was an unfamiliar technique, and its status as a "memory enhancing" technique engendered reluctance to apply it. Pressley, VanEtten, Yokoi, Freebern, and VanMeter (1998) found that learners tended to learn far better by focusing on the content of learning material rather than worrying over any one particular form of note-making