Writing Made Easy by Mind Mapping
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I started teaching the concept of mind mapping to my oldest two children recently. They're at the point where they are reading a significant level of books and I want to get them to comprehending what they're reading. I want them to start to produce book reports or oral presentations. However, if they try, they sometimes run into that age old problem of staring at a blank piece of paper and are not quite sure how to begin and how they'll fill the page. The thing is that they are trying to start without any structure. It is easy to get paralyzed just wondering getting to the finish of a full page or two without a plan. Let me help them start off on the proper foot and think about their subject rather than thinking about what seems like the daunting nature of the duty at hand.
I had already shown them the concept of an outline and talked in their mind concerning the structure of a five paragraph report. This very traditional structure comes with an introductory paragraph, three details about your subject, and a conclusion. But when you're coming up with the material to fill the report, you're still drawing a blank especially when you try to think about the order that you would like to cover your points simultaneously that you are attempting to generate them.
Because the time I grew up, there are several new skills that produce the process a lot easier. I told them that I take advantage of mind maps at the start of the procedure for organizing my thoughts. AI Mind Maps has less structured than an outline but it isn't quite as free-form as brainstorming. I discover that brainstorming does not give enough direction and I don't believe that's very conducive to just how that folks think. I find it much easier to make a mind map as soon as the mind map is done, prioritize the nodes within the mind map to produce an overview. Once I have an overview I'm ready to start my article. I believe that one of easy and simple ways to create the article from this point would be to pretend that I'm talking to someone who doesn't know about the subject that I'm presenting. I treat it in a conversational style. Or if my imaginary audience is familiar with the subject i quickly am likely to be telling them about new details or new information about that subject. Once I've an idea of how to approach this in a conversational style, I could utilize the mind map as a guide to generating a written report.
At this point it really is probably a good idea to define what mind mapping actually is. A mind map is started with a central topic in fact it is put in a circle in the middle of a bit of paper. Alternatively, software can be used to build the mind map. Lines are extended from the primary circle to create a new node for each proven fact that branches from that main idea. The branches can go off in any direction, it generally does not really matter at this stage. The ideas that go in nodes also go within circles. A fresh node could be generated one for just about any idea that is associated with the topic. This can be the part of my mapping that's closest to brainstorming. Additionally, there are sub-nodes that may be added to each node in your brain map. This can break that node down into more detail. This should be done in somewhat of a free format, rapid manner.
Once all the topics are listed on a mind map, the nodes can be reviewed and filtered out if they don't really belong there. The nodes can even be prioritized. They might be numbered in order worth focusing on or in the order that they can be covered in the report or presentation. In some recoverable format, this could be done by simply writing numbers on each one of the main nodes. Now that the nodes come in order, this process can also be put on the sub-nodes. Once it is done, the mind map can easily transferred to an outline.
When I create a mind map, what I normally do next is record myself discussing the subjects in the order that I've chosen on my Music player. I imagine that I am speaking to someone about this subject. It could take a couple of takes to obtain a clean recording without pauses. Each recording gets just a little easier. Once I have a recording that I'm happy with, I use computer software that translates speech to text to transcribe this article right into a word processor. I pay attention to the recordings with my headphones and repeat it right into a microphone with the program running. Once I've my document, I can edit it just how I would edit any document that I would write. If I desire to go on it a step further, I can now browse the edited document out loud with a microphone and record it in audio format on my computer therefore i might have it in multiple formats.
I had already shown them the concept of an outline and talked in their mind concerning the structure of a five paragraph report. This very traditional structure comes with an introductory paragraph, three details about your subject, and a conclusion. But when you're coming up with the material to fill the report, you're still drawing a blank especially when you try to think about the order that you would like to cover your points simultaneously that you are attempting to generate them.
Because the time I grew up, there are several new skills that produce the process a lot easier. I told them that I take advantage of mind maps at the start of the procedure for organizing my thoughts. AI Mind Maps has less structured than an outline but it isn't quite as free-form as brainstorming. I discover that brainstorming does not give enough direction and I don't believe that's very conducive to just how that folks think. I find it much easier to make a mind map as soon as the mind map is done, prioritize the nodes within the mind map to produce an overview. Once I have an overview I'm ready to start my article. I believe that one of easy and simple ways to create the article from this point would be to pretend that I'm talking to someone who doesn't know about the subject that I'm presenting. I treat it in a conversational style. Or if my imaginary audience is familiar with the subject i quickly am likely to be telling them about new details or new information about that subject. Once I've an idea of how to approach this in a conversational style, I could utilize the mind map as a guide to generating a written report.
At this point it really is probably a good idea to define what mind mapping actually is. A mind map is started with a central topic in fact it is put in a circle in the middle of a bit of paper. Alternatively, software can be used to build the mind map. Lines are extended from the primary circle to create a new node for each proven fact that branches from that main idea. The branches can go off in any direction, it generally does not really matter at this stage. The ideas that go in nodes also go within circles. A fresh node could be generated one for just about any idea that is associated with the topic. This can be the part of my mapping that's closest to brainstorming. Additionally, there are sub-nodes that may be added to each node in your brain map. This can break that node down into more detail. This should be done in somewhat of a free format, rapid manner.
Once all the topics are listed on a mind map, the nodes can be reviewed and filtered out if they don't really belong there. The nodes can even be prioritized. They might be numbered in order worth focusing on or in the order that they can be covered in the report or presentation. In some recoverable format, this could be done by simply writing numbers on each one of the main nodes. Now that the nodes come in order, this process can also be put on the sub-nodes. Once it is done, the mind map can easily transferred to an outline.
When I create a mind map, what I normally do next is record myself discussing the subjects in the order that I've chosen on my Music player. I imagine that I am speaking to someone about this subject. It could take a couple of takes to obtain a clean recording without pauses. Each recording gets just a little easier. Once I have a recording that I'm happy with, I use computer software that translates speech to text to transcribe this article right into a word processor. I pay attention to the recordings with my headphones and repeat it right into a microphone with the program running. Once I've my document, I can edit it just how I would edit any document that I would write. If I desire to go on it a step further, I can now browse the edited document out loud with a microphone and record it in audio format on my computer therefore i might have it in multiple formats.
