Thank you for the above information, I did not realize the other book was just an outline of sorts. I don’t think mind mapping is for comprehension, it is for helping to remember. I appreciate the words above, you gave me alot to think about.

I am glad I found this site, I would have sat there with a book that I know I can comprehend but no idea how to go about it, your a good person.

You’re comparing chalk and cheese ) You asked about physics and biology books. These are packed with facts which will need to go on a mind map if it’s to help you remember the subject.

“Made to Stick” is a book about ideas, so the resulting mind map is entirely different.

One of the book’s messages is to help people remember things by telling stories. As I say in my review at http://www.informationtamers.c.....on-it.html the authors follow their own prescription and the book is packed with anecdotes and illustrative tales – you wouldn’t map those (though I do summarize some in notes attached to the map nodes). As I also mention, it describes academic studies that support the points they make – you wouldn’t map those. It has many exercises for the reader to do – you wouldn’t map those.

The mind map I put in line was the one I made to remind myself of the key points in the book. These are really important but are actually quite simple, so the mind map is not large. I should add that being simple doesn’t mean the ideas are obvious. What is obvious is what the key points are – the authors state them up front and the book is clearly organized around them.

I’ve had several people write and thank me for that mind map and say ‘now I don’t need to read the book’. I always respond with “No, please read it” because the stories and studies quoted make the points in a powerful way that the reader is likely to be convinced by, in a way a ‘reminders’ mind map can never achieve.

I’m confident, despite your feeling of uncertainty about deciding what’s important, that you would be able to map that book and pick out the key points. But none of that applies to physics and biology books.

I can’t tell you how you should decide what is important, other than that obviously it needs thought and an unceasing attempt to comprehend what you’re reading. Mind mapping is not a subtitute for comprehension but it is an aid. You mention speed reading – that’s the last way I would attempt to comprehend and think a wrtten passage through, so don’t worry that you’re not a speed reader. It’s a valuable skill but in different circumstances.

The key phrases in your most recent comment is “I … write everything down and at the end I don’t know what it is about”.
It sounds to me as if you are focused more on note taking than understanding – the note taking is getting in the way.

So my Post-it notes suggestion may not be right for you – or at least as I made it. Maybe for a while you could add a step. Read with a highlighter in hand, and don’t make notes at that stage – highlight what seems important and keep the flow of the reading going. That may help if note making or mind mapping while reading distract you from comprehension – it’s a common problem.

Then you can come back to the highlighted material and make Post-it notes from it, and cluster from there – or even summarize the higlighted items straight into a mind map if you can by then (having read the entire textbook) decide on the context of each item straight away.

If it’s not your own copy of the book, I realize this isn’t going to be practical!

Roy
Editor – WikIT
The mind mapping wiki
http://www.informationtamers.c.....l:AllPages

That was one of the packages I had looked at, I felt it was a overkill for what I wanted to do. I have downloaded the trial to take a look, and it would be useful for organizing large groups of notes. I had a hard time choosing a package,none of them integrated with OneNote, which I use quite a bit.

I do have another question, I thought I was done. I have downloaded a completed mind map from a book “Made to Stick” I believe I downloaded it from this site. After I looked through it I was more confused than before, the map says the book is about 300 pages and all the words combined wouldn’t fill up 2 pages. I guess I am confused as to what information is important, I am not a speed reader so I cant look at a page and tell you what it is about. I have a difficult time picking main points from a book, cause they seem important, I try asking questions like what do I want to get from this book, but I start writing everything down. and the becomes counter productive.

What things can I do, lets say this is for a book that is not biology or physics. I get overwhelmed easily with books I know little about and write everything down and at the end I don’t know what it is about.

Thanks for your help if you can help. I will keep looking at your package, it does seem useful, I just need to find a use for it in my life.

Thanks for your appreciation of the wiki. I hope it’s useful to you.

Roy
Editor – WikIT
The mind mapping wiki
http://www.informationtamers.c.....l:AllPages

I to like your wiki page, I was reading a few of the sections and have bookmarked the page for future reference.

I originally started by taking regular notes, hand writing them then typing them later but the subject was to difficult and I was unable to retain information as easily as I used to, by repetition.

Get a few pads of Post-it tags, say 8cm x 8cm

Start reading the text book, and look for ideas or concepts that seem to you to be key points, or important. Put the name of the concept at the top of a Post-it tag, and summarize what you think is important below that.

Once you have a few of these, stick them on the wall or a door, grouping the ones that are related to one another together, and separating out unrelated ones.

After a while you’ll have several, or even many, clusters of Post-it tags on the wall (in fact this technique is sometimes called ‘clustering’). The topic you’re reading about will start to take on more form in your mind than merely reading and taking notes, because to do this, you have to think where a new tag fits in the ones you’ve made so far, and therefore how the concepts are related.

As this continues, some clusters will get large. Focus on one of those for a moment, write the name of the main topic of this cluster on a new Post-it tag, and look for a way to break the cluster down in further clusters around that new tag.

Then you’ll have the material for a mind map partially organized and can start preparing it ‘off the wall’.

There are many styles of mind map, and a pure Buzan-type mind map may not work so well when learning a complex subject like biology at an advanced level. I would use a spider diagram (what I refer to in my wiki as a common mind map) instead. These can use large nodes with a block of text, not the single-word ones that Mr. Buzan encourages. (Your taste may differ.)

Chances are, once you’ve done clustering a few times, you’ll move straight on to doing more or less the same process directly on a mind map.

Then, if you are learning a complex subject, your understanding is going to change as your read, so I would suggest using mind mapping software rather than hand-drawn maps, or you’ll be forever re-drawing. Hand drawn maps and Buzan-stle mind maps are great for simpler topics, or for thinking something through that you have in your head already.

Roy
Editor – WikIT
The mind mapping wiki
http://www.informationtamers.c.....l:AllPages

How would I mind map a book with lots of topics like biology or physics or a subject I know little or nothing about. I am using freemind and mindmanager.