Mind Mapping

Mind maps can be used to:

• Summarize information
• Convey information from different sources
• Think throught complex problems
• Present information in a format that shows the overall structure of a subject. ^[1]

General Guidelines

• Take a blank paper and feel free to start your drawing wherever you want to.
• Be open and have a creative attitude, trying to let ideas flow and to write all of them.
• Free associate without limitating your ideas, you can always add new branches and write more information.
• Try to capture all your ideas as rapidly as possible.
• Don't make any judgemnt, just write everything you are thinking to.
• Keep moving even when ideas slow down, so that the brain keeps active, searching for new things to add.
• Allow organization, once all the idea has been added you can organize them
• Experiment with different ways of linking and emphasising different aspects, for example using colours and highlighters.

Practical Tips

• Use single words or simple phrases, they can convey the same meaning of a long sentence but they are more potent.
• Use coulours to separate different concepts, this will make the map easy to remember and will help showing the organization of the subject.
• Use symbols and images, that are easier to remember the words.
• Use corss linkages, since information in one part of the drawing may relate with other on the other side of it.

Freemind

Source http://freeming.sourceforge.net

Description

• Software to download (10.4MB)
• Link to document and to external web-sites
• Ramification only horizontal, with no freedom to change the structure and to connect nodes far from each other