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Outlining
Trying to devise a structure for your essay can be one of the most difficult parts of
the writing process. Making a detailed outline before you begin writing is a good way
to make sure your ideas come across in a clear and logical order. A good outline will
also save you time in the revision process, reducing the possibility that your ideas will
need to be rearranged once you've written them.

The First Steps

Before you can begin outlining, you need to have a sense of what you will argue in the
essay. From your analysis and close readings of primary and/or secondary sources you
should have notes, ideas, and possible quotes to cite as evidence. Let's say you are
writing about the 1999 Republican Primary and you want to prove that each
candidate's financial resources were the most important element in the race. At this
point, your notes probably lack much coherent order. Most likely, your ideas are still
in the order in which they occurred to you; your notes and possible quotes probably
still adhere to the chronology of the sources you've examined. Your goal is to
rearrange your ideas, notes, and quotesthe raw material of your essayinto an order
that best supports your argument, not the arguments you've read in other people's
works. To do this, you have to group your notes into categories and then arrange
these categories in a logical order.

Generalizing

The first step is to look over each individual piece of information that you've written
and assign it to a general category. Ask yourself, "If I were to file this in a database,
what would I file it under?" If, using the example of the Republican Primary, you
wrote down an observation about John McCain's views on health care, you might list it
under the general category of "Health care policy." As you go through your notes, try
to reuse categories whenever possible. Your goal is to reduce your notes to no more
than a page of category listings.

Now examine your category headings. Do any seem repetitive? Do any go together?
"McCain's expenditure on ads" and "Bush's expenditure on ads," while not exactly
repetitive, could easily combine into a more general category like "Candidates'
expenditures on ads." Also, keep an eye out for categories that no longer seem to
relate to your argument. Individual pieces of information that at first seemed
important can begin to appear irrelevant when grouped into a general category.
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Now it's time to generalize again. Examine all your categories and look for common
themes. Go through each category and ask yourself, "If I were to place this piece of
information in a file cabinet, what would I label that cabinet?" Again, try to reuse
labels as often as possible: "Health Care," "Foreign Policy," and "Immigration" can all
be contained under "Policy Initiatives." Make these larger categories as general as
possible so that there are no more than three or four for a 7-10 page paper.

Ordering

With your notes grouped into generalized categories, the process of ordering them
should be easier. To begin, look at your most general categories. With your thesis in
mind, try to find a way that the labels might be arranged in a sentence or two that
supports your argument. Let's say your thesis is that financial resources played the
most important role in the 1999 Republican Primary. Your four most general
categories are "Policy Initiatives," "Financial Resources," "Voters' Concerns," and
"Voters' Loyalty." You might come up with the following sentence: Although McCain's
policy initiatives were closest to the voters' concerns, Bush's financial resources won
the voters' loyalty. This sentence should reveal the order of your most general
categories. You will begin with an examination of McCain's and Bush's views on
important issues and compare them to the voters' top concerns. Then you'll look at
both candidates' financial resources and show how Bush could win voters' loyalty
through effective use of his resources, despite his less popular policy ideas.

With your most general categories in order, you now must order the smaller
categories. To do so, arrange each smaller category into a sentence or two that will
support the more general sentence you've just devised. Under the category of
"Financial Resources," for instance, you might have the smaller categories of "Ad
Expenditure," "Campaign Contributions" and "Fundraising." A sentence that supports
your general argument might read: "Bush's early emphasis on fundraising led to
greater campaign contributions, allowing him to have a greater ad expenditure than
McCain."

The final step of the outlining process is to repeat this procedure on the smallest
level, with the original notes that you took for your essay. To order what probably
was an unwieldy and disorganized set of information at the beginning of this process,
you need now only think of a sentence or two to support your general argument.
Under the category "Fundraising," for example, you might have quotes about each
candidate's estimation of its importance, statistics about the amount of time each
candidate spent fundraising, and an idea about how the importance of fundraising
never can be overestimated. Sentences to support your general argument might read:
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"No candidate has ever raised too much money [your idea]. While both McCain and
Bush acknowledged the importance of fundraising [your quotes], the numbers clearly
point to Bush as the superior fundraiser [your statistics]." The arrangement of your
ideas, quotes, and statistics now should come naturally.

Putting It All Together

With these sentences, you have essentially constructed an outline for your essay. The
most general ideas, which you organized in your first sentence, constitute the essay's
sections. They follow the order in which you placed them in your sentence. The order
of the smaller categories within each larger category (determined by your secondary
sentences) indicates the order of the paragraphs within each section. Finally, your
last set of sentences about your specific notes should show the order of the sentences
within each paragraph. An outline for the essay about the 1999 Republican Primary
(showing only the sections worked out here) would look something like this:

I. POLICY INITIATIVES

II. VOTERS' CONCERNS

III. FINANCIAL RESOURCES

A. Fundraising

a. Original Idea

b. McCain Quote/Bush Quote

c. McCain Statistics/Bush Statistics

B. Campaign Contributions

C. Ad Expenditure

IV. VOTERS' LOYALTY

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This article is about the diagram. For the geographical concept, see Mental mapping.

Hand-drawn and computer-drawn variations of a mind map.

A mind map is a diagram used to visually outline information. A mind map is often created
around a single word or text, placed in the center, to which associated ideas, words and concepts
are added. Major categories radiate from a central node, and lesser categories are sub-branches of
larger branches.[1] Categories can represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items related to a central
key word or idea.

Mind maps can be drawn by hand, either as "rough notes" during a lecture or meeting, for
example, or as higher quality pictures when more time is available. An example of a rough mind
map is illustrated.

Mind maps are considered to be a type of spider diagram.[2] A similar concept in the 1970s was
"idea sun bursting".[3]

Origins[edit]
Although the term "mind map" was first popularized by British popular psychology author and
television personality Tony Buzan, the use of diagrams that visually "map" information using
branching and radial maps traces back centuries. These pictorial methods record knowledge and
model systems, and have a long history in learning, brainstorming, memory, visual thinking, and
problem solving by educators, engineers, psychologists, and others. Some of the earliest
examples of such graphical records were developed by Porphyry of Tyros, a noted thinker of the
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3rd century, as he graphically visualized the concept categories of Aristotle. Philosopher Ramon
Llull (12351315) also used such techniques.

The semantic network was developed in the late 1950s as a theory to understand human learning
and developed further by Allan M. Collins and M. Ross Quillian during the early 1960s. Mind
maps are similar in radial structure to concept maps, developed by learning experts in the 1970s,
but differ in that the former are simplified by focusing around a single central key concept.

Popularization of the term "mind map"[edit]

Buzan's specific approach, and the introduction of the term "mind map" arose during a 1974
BBC TV series he hosted, called Use Your Head.[4][5] In this show, and companion book series,
Buzan promoted his conception of radial tree, diagramming key words in a colorful, radiant,
tree-like structure.[6]

Buzan says the idea was inspired by Alfred Korzybski's general semantics as popularized in
science fiction novels, such as those of Robert A. Heinlein and A.E. van Vogt. He argues that
while "traditional" outlines force readers to scan left to right and top to bottom, readers actually
tend to scan the entire page in a non-linear fashion. Buzan's treatment also uses then-popular
assumptions about the functions of cerebral hemispheres in order to explain the claimed
increased effectiveness of mind mapping over other forms of note making.

Mind map guidelines[edit]

Buzan suggests the following guidelines for creating mind maps:

1. Start in the center with an image of the topic, using at least 3 colors.
2. Use images, symbols, codes, and dimensions throughout your mind map.
3. Select key words and print using upper or lower case letters.
4. Each word/image is best alone and sitting on its own line.
5. The lines should be connected, starting from the central image. The central lines are thicker,
organic and thinner as they radiate out from the center.
6. Make the lines the same length as the word/image they support.
7. Use multiple colors throughout the mind map, for visual stimulation and also to encode or
group.
8. Develop your own personal style of mind mapping.
9. Use emphasis and show associations in your mind map.
10. Keep the mind map clear by using radial hierarchy, numerical order or outlines to embrace your
branches.

This list is itself more concise than a prose version of the same information and the mind map of
these guidelines is itself intended to be more memorable and quicker to scan than either the prose
or the list.
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Uses[edit]

Rough mindmap notes taken during a course session

As with other diagramming tools, mind maps can be used to generate, visualize, structure, and
classify ideas, and as an aid to studying[7] and organizing information, solving problems, making
decisions, and writing.

Mind maps have many applications in personal, family, educational, and business situations,
including notetaking, brainstorming (wherein ideas are inserted into the map radially around the
center node, without the implicit prioritization that comes from hierarchy or sequential
arrangements, and wherein grouping and organizing is reserved for later stages), summarizing, as
a mnemonic technique, or to sort out a complicated idea. Mind maps are also promoted as a way
to collaborate in color pen creativity sessions.

Mind maps can be used for:

problem-solving
outline/framework design
structure/relationship representations
anonymous collaboration
marriage of words and visuals
individual expression of creativity
condensing material into a concise and memorable format
team-building or synergy creating activity
enhancing work morale

In addition to these direct use cases, data retrieved from mind maps can be used to enhance
several other applications; for instance expert search systems, search engines and search and tag
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query recommender.[8] To do so, mind maps can be analysed with classic methods of information
retrieval to classify a mind map's author or documents that are linked from within the mind
map.[8]

Differences from other visualizations[edit]

Concept maps - Mind maps differ from concept maps in that mind maps focus on only one word
or idea, whereas concept maps connect multiple words or ideas. Also, concept maps typically
have text labels on their connecting lines/arms. Mind maps are based on radial hierarchies and
tree structures denoting relationships with a central governing concept, whereas concept maps
are based on connections between concepts in more diverse patterns. However, either can be
part of a larger personal knowledge base system.

Modelling graphs - There is no rigorous right or wrong with mind maps, relying on the
arbitrariness of mnemonic systems. A UML diagram or a semantic network has structured
elements modelling relationships, with lines connecting objects to indicate relationship. This is
generally done in black and white with a clear and agreed iconography. Mind maps serve a
different purpose: they help with memory and organization. Mind maps are collections of words
structured by the mental context of the author with visual mnemonics, and, through the use of
colour, icons and visual links, are informal and necessary to the proper functioning of the mind
map.

Research[edit]
Effectiveness - Cunningham (2005) conducted a user study in which 80% of the students
thought "mindmapping helped them understand concepts and ideas in science".[9] Other studies
also report positive effects through the use of mind maps.[10][11] Farrand, Hussain, and Hennessy
(2002) found that spider diagrams (similar to concept maps) had limited, but significant, impact
on memory recall 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).[12] This
improvement was only robust after a week for those in the diagram group and there was a
significant decrease in motivation compared to the subjects' preferred methods of note taking. A
meta study about concept mapping concluded that concept mapping is more effective than
"reading text passages, attending lectures, and participating in class discussions".[13] The same
study also concluded that concept mapping is slightly more effective "than other constructive
activities such as writing summaries and outlines". In addition, they concluded that low-ability
students may benefit more from mind mapping than high-ability students.

Features of Mind Maps - Beel & Langer (2011) conducted a comprehensive analysis of the
content of mind maps.[14] They analysed 19,379 mind maps from 11,179 users of the mind
mapping applications SciPlore MindMapping (aka Docear) and MindMeister. Results include
that average users create only a few mind maps (mean=2.7), average mind maps are rather small
(31 nodes) with each node containing about 3 words (median). However, there were exceptions.
One user created more than 200 mind maps, the largest mind map consisted of more than 50,000
nodes and the largest node contained ~7500 words. The study also showed that between different
mind mapping applications (Docear vs MindMeister) significant differences exist related to how
users create mind maps.
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Automatic Creating of Mind Maps - There have been some attempts to create mind maps
automatically. Brucks & Schommer created mind maps automatically from full-text streams.[15]
Rothenberger et al. extracted the main story of a text and presented it as mind map.[16] And there
is a patent about automatically creating sub-topics in mind maps.[17]

Pen and Paper vs Computer - There are two studies that analyze whether electronic mind
mapping or pen based mind mapping is more effective.[18][19]

Tools[edit]
Mind-mapping software can be used to organize large amounts of information, combining spatial
organization, dynamic hierarchical structuring and node folding. Software packages can extend
the concept of mind-mapping by allowing individuals to map more than thoughts and ideas with
information on their computers and the Internet, like spreadsheets, documents, Internet sites and
images.[20] Note-taking software such as Microsoft OneNote often incorporates mind mapping
capabilities. It has been suggested that mind-mapping can improve learning/study efficiency up
to 15% over conventional note-taking.[21]

Generation from natural language[edit]

In 2009, Mohamed Elhoseiny et al.[22] presented the first prototype that can generate mind maps
out of small text to fit in a single screen. In 2012,[23] it was extended into a more scalable system
that can work from larger texts.

Trademark[edit]
The phrase "mind map" is trademarked by Buzan's company for the specific use for self-
improvement educational courses in Great Britain [24] and the United States.[25] The trademark
does not appear in the records of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office.[26]
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a. Read the passage given below and make a mind map/note of it with the main and the sub-
points.

Automobiles on the Roads

The early decades of the century saw a great transformation on the highways of Europe. The motorcar
which first appeared at the close of last century was gradually displacing other forms of transport. The
horse drawn carriages could not compete with the new machine, and were disappearing when the rich
man began to look upon the private motor car as a necessary symbol of his status. But not everyone
even among the rich could afford the luxury of a private car. Those who were young could go in for the
cheaper motorbike and tear through the streets like a peal of thunder. Naturally, with vehicles equipped
with petrol engines, speed became an important consideration. Young men wanted to go faster and
faster, defying the law that imposed a limit of twenty miles an hour on the speed of motorcars. But the
thrill was partly in the fact that it was a machine that moved by itself, an auto-- mobile.

The pressure on the roads began to increase. The existing roads could not bear the heavier and faster
traffic of the automobile age. Trucks carrying loads weighing several tons required better roads. The
surface of the roads which were dusty and uneven had to be improved. The use of tar on road surfaces
began in the early years of the century. Where traffic was particularly heavy, concrete surfaces were
provided. When the density of traffic increased still further, the roads were widened and separate lanes
were provided for traffic in each direction.

b. Use the mind map given below to write a paragraph.

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Affordable
Different prices
brands

Availability

Information

Impact of Impact on social life

television

Boon
Bane

Opportunities
for artists
Creates
unnecessary
Health Hazard
sensation

Entertainment Medium for

reaching out to
the public

For For
children adults
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