Writing Made Easy by Mind Mapping

I started teaching the idea of mind mapping to my oldest two children recently. They are at the stage where they are reading quite a level of books and I wish to make sure they are 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 issue 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 attempting to start without the structure.  It is easy to get paralyzed just wondering how to get to the end of a page or two with out a plan.  I'd like to help them start off on the proper foot and consider their subject instead of 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 to them concerning the structure of a five paragraph report.  AI Brainstorming  comes with an introductory paragraph, three details about your subject, and a conclusion. However when you're coming up with the material to fill the report, you're still drawing a blank especially when you try to take into account the order you want to cover your points simultaneously that you are attempting to generate them.

Since the time I grew up, there are several new skills that make the process a lot easier.  I explained to them that I use mind maps in the beginning of the process of organizing my thoughts.  Mind mapping has less structured than an overview but it isn't quite as free-form as brainstorming. I find that brainstorming will not give enough direction and I don't think that is very conducive to the way that folks think. I find it much easier to produce a mind map and once the mind map is performed, prioritize the nodes within the mind map to produce an overview. Once I have an overview I'm prepared to start my article. I think that one of easy and simple ways to create this article from this point is to pretend that I'm talking to someone who doesn't find out about the topic that I'm presenting. I approach 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 regarding that subject. Once I have an idea of how to overcome this in a conversational style, I could use the mind map as helpful information to generating a report.

At this point it really is probably smart 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 piece of paper.  Alternatively, software may be used to build the mind map. Lines are extended from the primary circle to make a new node for every idea that branches from that main idea. The branches can set off in any direction, it generally does not really matter at this point. The ideas that go in nodes also go within circles. A new node could be generated one for any idea that is associated with the topic. This can be the part of my mapping that is closest to brainstorming. There are also sub-nodes that can be added to each node in your brain map. This can break that node into more detail. This will be achieved in somewhat of a free format, rapid manner.

Once all of the topics are listed on a mind map, the nodes can be reviewed and filtered out should they don't really belong there. The nodes can be prioritized. They could be numbered in order worth focusing on or in the order that they will be covered in the report or presentation. In writing, this can be done simply by writing numbers on each of the main nodes. Now that the nodes are in order, this process can even be put on the sub-nodes. Once it is done, the mind map can easily used in an outline.

When I develop a mind map, what I normally do next is record myself discussing the subjects in the order that I've chosen on my MP3 player. I imagine that I'm speaking to someone about this subject. It could take a few takes to get a clean recording without pauses.  Each recording gets a little easier. Once I've a recording that I'm happy with, I take advantage of computer software that translates speech to text to transcribe this article 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 have my document, I can edit it just how I would edit any document that I'd write. If I want to take it a step further, I can now browse the edited document aloud with a microphone and record it in audio format on my computer therefore i can have it in multiple formats.