How To Make Mind Map (Step By Step)

A Mind Map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. I use Mind Map in almost every area of my personal and student life. Today, I am going to show you guys how to make Mind Maps step by step (as my teacher said, a dummy guide). In this post, I am going to show you how to make it with the software Mindjet, you can also do this with any other Mind Map software or simply papers and pens.

What do you need

• Your brain
• A PC/Mac which has installed Mindjet(some people call it Mind Manager)

Central node (Title)

This is the purpose/core topic of your Mind Map.

If you are 

• brainstorming, then name it with the question you need to overcome.
• organizing the notes of books, then name it with title of the book.
• planning a project, then name it with the project's name.

I really agree what AE said "whatever it is, the core topic of the mindmap should be immediately obvious."

For example, I need to make a plan for my AP Calculus preparation (actually, the test was just over last week ), the Central node should look like this.

First Tier Thoughts

If we call the central node as King Arthur, the "first tier thoughts" will be the "knights of the round table"(they are the biggest ideas). According to my own experience and suggestions from other mindmappers, I found the "knights of the round table" should not be more than 12, otherwise, you will feel overwhelmed.

One trick you can use here is that divide the Central node into 12 most important pieces according to time boundaries/ categaries/ team members or...

The description should be as short as possible. In order to make mindmaps readable, they should be no more than 5 word. It is always good to start with a verb and end with a noun.
If you want to know tricks, check here.

As to my AP Preparation, they should be like this:

Click for bigger image

Further Tiers

The second tiers and further tiers are the details about your topic and the main ideas.

Feel free to create as many second and further tiers you need. In order not to make the mindmap look like linear notes or wiki-style documents, you'd better keep four layers in total, and no more than 20 branches in every node(they are actually approximate numbers, it all depends on the real situations).

If you can, you should just write done the keywords instead of several sentence or one long paragraph. You will appreciate yourself for eliminating extra junk information later reviews.

Here is the example for my AP Preparations:

Click for bigger image

Final Step: Reorganize

Once it's done, it is not really done.  After you finish your mind map, you will find it is still kind of messy and not the way you want it be. One more step you need to do is to reorganize it in the way that make sense to you. And this is one big feature of Mind Map, it is very easy to reorganize with your software. Just use your mouse drag them around.

Profound

If you have made one Mind Map for book notes (or something like that) . You'd better come back to review your MindMap once in a while. The best way to memorize something is to understand it and review it more often. Our perceptions never stop improving/changing, something makes sense to us now, may not make sense later. When you review your old Mind Map in the future, you will feel they are still not good enough. You need further rearrange, editing and deleting in order to make it better, and infuse it in your mind.

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How Students Can Use Quora to Enhance Learning

How Students Can Use Quora to Enhance Learning
Quora is a relatively new question-and-answer site that connects users with those who have expertise about a certain topic. While there are many other sites that offer this same question-and-answer model, Quora offers many additional features that enhance the user experience. The model is both informative and social, creating a site that is a cross between Wikipedia and social-networking sites like Facebook, Pinterest, and Digg.
Because of its unique model, Quora is a great place for students to learn more about a topic or to enhance their studies. Here are just a few ways that students can use Quora to enhance their learning:
Get Authoritative Answers
The most obvious benefit of Quora for students is the availability of information. If students have questions about the material they are studying, answers are just a question away. Yet unlike some other question-and-answer sites, Quora provides measures to deliver quality, authoritative answers.
Community moderators ensure that answers are not spammy or irrelevant. In addition, users can vote on the relevancy of an answer, sending it up or down in the results. The more useful and authoritative an answer, the higher it will be voted.
Students looking for authoritative information can trust the answers found on Quora. You won't be able to quote the answers in a research paper, but you will be able to use them to guide your studies, better understand the material for self-directed learning, and find additional resources to help you engage more deeply with the material.
Build Content Catalogues
One question is not enough to exhaust all the information that you will need on a subject. Quora allows you to easily create catalogues of content around a topic in two ways: By creating topical boards and by following a topic thread or a user that you have identified as an expert.
Similar to Pinterest, you can create a board on Quora around a particular topic. You can tag items that you have written or that have been answered on Quora, allowing you to put all the information you need about a topic in one place.
You can also follow the boards that other people have created, helping you to learn even more about your topics of interest. You can also follow users who you have identified as experts in your field, alerting you to new discussions on that topic. In addition, you can follow specific questions and topics.
Creating boards and following users or topics can keep you up-to-date and better informed about your topic. Not only can you learn about all the newest information related to your topic, but you can be sure that you have been thoroughly informed about all aspects of your topic.
Know What You Don't Know 
Quora has an intuitive feature that recommends related questions and answers, similar to the search recommendations featured in Google. When you start to type in your question, related searches will appear. When you get your search results, related questions will also appear there. There will even be suggestions for "best questions."
By looking through these suggestions and the related content, you can learn what you don't know. You can learn about aspects of your topic you may not have considered, and you can learn new ways of approaching the material. You get answers to questions you didn't even know you needed to ask.
In this way, Quora helps you explore a topic more thoroughly, guiding you through research. When you combine the ability to explore related content, to follow topics, boards and experts to get complete information about a topic, and to get authoritative answers, Quora provides students a personalized reference tool that can enhance learning. It becomes a sort of personal tutor, available for individuated instruction at your own pace.
Have you used Quora? What are your thoughts on how it has helped you to enhance your studies? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Audrey Porterman is the main researcher and writer for doctoralprograms.org. Her most recent accomplishment includes graduating from Ohio State, with a degree in business management. Her current focus for the site involves executive phd programs and phd in higher education.


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