•
What information or knowledge do you need?
•
Which are the most important seven categories in the topic under
consideration?
•
If this were a book, what would its chapter headings be? What
lessons or themes are there?
•
What questions do you need to ask? (Prompts such as “What?”,
“Where?”, “Who?”, “How?”, “Which?”, “When?” can make very
useful main branches in a Mind Map.)
•
Into which sub-categories can you divide your topic?
Your BOIs can also address the following considerations:
•
Structure – the form of things
•
Function – the purpose of things and what they do
•
Properties – the characteristics of things
•
Processes – how things work
•
Evaluation – how beneficial things are
•
Definitions – what things mean
•
Classification – how things relate to each other
•
History – the chronological sequence of events
•
Personalities – people’s roles and characters
To get started, you could jot down the first ten words or images that spring to
mind, then group these under generic headings to form your main radiating
branches.
BRANCH OUT
As suggested in
Chapter 1
, make the branches closest to the central image
thicker, to emphasize their importance to your brain, and write your Basic
Ordering Ideas (BOIs) above them. Any subbranches that sprout from a main
branch will hold information that supports that particular BOI. The most general
(inclusive) concepts tend to sit closer to the central image, while the less general
(more exclusive or specific) concepts appear on the subbranches, further away
from the Mind Map’s centre.
If your Mind Map is still at an exploratory stage, you could well discover that
some of the peripheral ideas turn out to be more important than those you
initially placed toward the centre. When this happens, simply thicken up the
outer branches where necessary, thereby adding another layer of interest to your
Mind Map.
Make all the branches reach out in an organic, wave-like, flowing manner to
enhance their visual appeal. In addition to this, if you make your branches curve
and radiate organically, each one will have a unique shape which can then be
further used to activate your recall of the information held within that branch.
|
