I’m going to preface this by saying that we all learn and process differently, and that’s amazing. So, if what I explain doesn’t seem like something that applies to you or works for you, that’s totally fine. If it seems like something you would benefit from… you’ve found a new way to outline your paper. Which is actually a really good segue into what mind mapping is.

So, for a long time, I was writing English papers and I would always get points off for poor organization — to the extent that it made me reevaluate my organizational skills entirely. So I was told to mind map, and I quickly discovered it’s actually much simpler than I thought it would be. Mind mapping is a way for me to visually understand all of the ideas that are bouncing around in my head and figure out what connects. The reason why this works so well for me is because when I’m thinking about writing a paper, I’m thinking about every aspect of it: at the same time as I’m picturing which quote I’ll use in body paragraph one, I’m picturing the analysis of body paragraph 2. So, I don’t think linearly; I don’t think from the beginning of my intro paragraph, all the way down. I’m thinking about everything. On my mind mapping journey, I encountered a website called Coggle, to which I’ve grown quite attached.

Lastly, what mind mapping has taught me is that, as I said earlier, I was getting points off of all my essays, and I was feeling a bit down about my writing skills. After I created a mind map, I looked at it from a distanced perspective and realized how cool the way my mind works. I now understand that my different way of processing is not an issue to overcome, but rather an artistic dissimilarity to the way I had been taught.

In this video, I will take you through how to mind map. <3

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash