writing essay mind maps

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How to Create a Mind Map for Essay Writing

Last Updated: December 1, 2023 Fact Checked

Generating Your Map

Organizing your map for writing, expert q&a.

This article was co-authored by Jake Adams . Jake Adams is an academic tutor and the owner of Simplifi EDU, a Santa Monica, California based online tutoring business offering learning resources and online tutors for academic subjects K-College, SAT & ACT prep, and college admissions applications. With over 14 years of professional tutoring experience, Jake is dedicated to providing his clients the very best online tutoring experience and access to a network of excellent undergraduate and graduate-level tutors from top colleges all over the nation. Jake holds a BS in International Business and Marketing from Pepperdine University. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 286,886 times.

If you’re a visual learner or just looking to switch up how you outline your essays, mind maps can be a game-changer. They make coming up with ideas for your essay and organizing them super easy. If you’ve never used a mind map for essay writing before, don’t worry—we break down everything you need to know to get started in the steps below.

Things You Should Know

• Get out a piece of paper and write your topic in the center. This can be a single word or sentence.
• Then, write down any words and ideas that relate to your topic. Circle them and then draw lines or arrows to connect them to the topic.
• Label each bubble idea according to where it fits into your paper. This can be a specific paragraph or a general section, like the introduction.

• Lay out the colored markers or pencils to which you have assigned meaning.
• Orient your paper so that it is in landscape position.
• If you don't have colored pencils or markers, don't worry. You can still make a mind map with just a pen or pencil!

• Circle your topic.

• Each thing you write down may give you another association. Write that down as well. For instance, writing "Impairment vs. disability" might remind you of "wheelchair ramps."
• Try to cluster related thoughts together ("wheelchair ramps"—"access to public life"), but don't worry if it doesn't always happen—you can draw a line between things you wish to connect.
• Look for connections between your unrelated thoughts and jot them into the picture.

• You might also label them "supporting argument," "evidence," "counterargument" etc.

• Include doodles if they occur to you, but again, don't get caught up in making them perfect.
• Depending on your age and essay topic, you might want to focus more on drawing pictures than writing out words.

• While there are plenty of programs available for purpose, you can also use free online mapping tools like Bubble.us, Mind42, or Coggle.

• Add details as you go. For instance, you may write some of the sources you are planning to use to the sections of your essay to which they apply.

• If you do this, you can start by drawing bubbles for the sections and continue by filling in the thoughts and associations.
• You can also organize your revised mind map into bubble for topic sentences that branch into smaller bubbles for supporting arguments and evidence.
• Once you've done this, you practically have a rough draft of your paper.

• Start each paragraph with a sentence that introduces the ideas of that paragraph, and write until you have incorporated all the information for that section.
• If you end up adding things that weren't on your map, look at your map to check that they fit, and consider penciling them in. One of the virtues of the map is that it keeps you on topic.
• Make sure you're not cramming too many points from your mind map into a single paragraph.

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.adelaide.edu.au/writingcentre/sites/default/files/docs/learningguide-mindmapping.pdf
• ↑ https://emedia.rmit.edu.au/learninglab/content/how-create-mind-map
• ↑ https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/using-concept-maps/
• ↑ Jake Adams. Academic Tutor & Test Prep Specialist. Expert Interview. 20 May 2020.

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Free Mind Map for Essay Templates by GitMind

Making an essay is a common piece of advice offered to you along with your writing assignment. In that case, this post will teach you how to make mind maps as well as how to use pre-made mind maps for essay models. Mind mapping organizes information in a way that mirrors how our brains truly operate, as opposed to standard note-taking or linear text that you’ve been taught or have grown accustomed to. It can also help you avoid the stumbling blocks and overload created by overt analytical thinking. It lets you view more than one notion at a time, which helps to clarify your thoughts.

Free Mind Map for Essay by GitMind

Effective essay writing, essay topic template, paragraph essay organizer, mind map for essay benefits, how to create a mind map for an essay.

A mind map for writing an essay is a written piece in which you convey a certain topic and then back it up with facts, claims, analyses, and explanations. The five-paragraph essay is the most common style of an essay, though an essay can have as many parts as necessary. A 5 essay is comprised of five paragraphs. An essay, on the other hand, is divided into 3 sections: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.

According to the mind map essay example, an essay is a written piece in which you convey a certain topic and then back it up with facts, claims, analyses, and explanations. The five-paragraph essay is the most common style of an essay, though an essay can have as many parts as necessary. A 5 essay is comprised of five paragraphs. An essay, on the other hand, is divided into 3 sections: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.

Plan essay mind map template with this paragraph organizer. The introduction should begin with a broad statement and end with a thesis statement that zooms in on the themes you will discuss in considerable depth. The proof of your idea should be included in the body paragraphs. Lastly, the conclusions affirm your topic and the key ideas of your work and then zoom out with an assessment or comment on the greater issue.

Mind map for essay may be an excellent method for you to try if you want to attain higher levels of attention and creativity, as well as the improved organization and more succinct communication. The advantages of concept maps are numerous and diverse. In essence, they include: presenting an overview of a vast subject/broad issue and enabling you to portray it in a more compact manner and also creating a more appealing and entertaining structure for your ocular to look at, ruminate over, and remember.

Creating a mind map essay example is always challenging, even if you are a superb writer and are well-versed in the subject. In contrast to other types of writing, you need to cultivate an interesting way of thinking in order to persuade readers of your point of view. In this instance, a program like GitMind might be useful. It will enable you to write essays that need ordered thought. While there are various strategies for arranging the thoughts you want to include in your essay, many people connect using a mind map for essay writing to utilizing a mind map. This program makes it easy to brainstorm, convey your ideas, and clarify your position.

• To get started, go to the GitMind official website. and then press the “Get Started” button.

• Start designing your mind map for writing an essay by clicking the “Create MindMap” button.

• Select your favorite layout and begin entering data into each node.

• When you’re finished, just click the “Save” button to save your changes.

In summary, making a mind map for essay writing is a basic yet very efficient method of brainstorming and outlining your thoughts. A mind map represents your topic by using a primary thought and branches that explain the center notion. Terms and keyphrases, color codes for phrases and branching, and visual materials like doodles or symbols are all used in well-drawn mind maps. On a single page, you may generally summarize all of your essay’s main points.

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Whether you’re writing an essay, creating a presentation, or brainstorming strategies with your team, it’s a challenge to sort ideas effectively. There’s a simple solution to this, used by students and established writers alike: mind maps! A mind map helps you organize your ideas in a systematic manner and reveals clues for you to arrange your material better.

In this article, we’ll explore what mind mapping is and learn how to make a creative map for your ideas. We’ll also take a look at some mind map examples to show you unique and innovative ways to create a mind map. But before we begin, let’s establish a mind mapping definition.

What is a mind map?

A mind map is a visual tool used for brainstorming, problem-solving, and organizing ideas. It is a diagram that starts with a central idea and branches out to related subtopics and details.

As you lay out different topics and subtopics visually, you can clearly see the connections between them. In this way, mind mapping helps you see the relationships between different ideas and understand complex topics easily. It’s time to throw away those hefty notes and make note-taking a fun activity!

Let’s see how you can use a mind map in different ways.

Why use mind maps?

Is there any advantage to mind mapping beyond the obvious joy of drawing out your thought process? It’s all very well that you avoid working like a grumpy professor, but what beyond this? 

Here are some benefits of using a mind map:

• Learning becomes a stimulating process.
• Difficult topics can be simplified and easy to understand.
• You can visualize complex points to easily remember and recall dense pieces of information.
• The freedom to connect ideas without a specific order leads to creative and innovative solutions.
• You can come up with a hierarchy of points by easily differentiating between primary and secondary topics.
• The engaging act of making a mind map speeds up brainstorming and improves productivity.
• Easy collaboration allows an entire team or group to work together on a presentation or project.

Mind mapping allows you to see connections and relationships between different ideas. The process makes it easier to understand complex topics and make the right decisions. In this way, a mind map enhances your memory, comprehension, and productivity.

How to make a mind map

It’s quite easy to create a mind map. All you need is a pen and paper! If you prefer working on a laptop, there are several tools you can use, our mind map template being one of them. Scroll down and you’ll find our template.

Follow these steps to make a mind map:

1.  Start with a central idea

Write down the central idea or topic in the center of a blank page. This can be your essay title, an area of research, or a problem you need to solve. Make sure you leave enough space on all sides to create a spreading map.

We’ll add a step-by-step mind map example to help you understand the process. Let’s say you had to brainstorm an essay on types of democracy. Your first step will begin at the central point.

2. Add related ideas

Think of the most important subtopics or areas of interest and arrange them around the central idea. Connect these to the main topic with lines or arrows to indicate the relationship between the two.

So for an essay mind map, the first relevant bubble will be the essay introduction, which will further lead to your thesis statement . For now, we’ll show you the second stage of mind mapping in this example:

3. Create a hierarchy of ideas

Keep adding more layers until you get a spreading map that starts with your central idea and ends with specific facts, evidence, and examples. As you break down your information into smaller and smaller points, you’ll also need to denote the connections between them.

If any facts from separate subtopics are connected, draw a dotted line or arrow between them to indicate this. When you open your mind map later, all hierarchies and connections should be instantly clear to you. Come up with a system of arrows and lines to denote various types of connections between points and subpoints.

Our mind map example will outline this for you:

4. Review and refine the map

If you don’t have a rough essay outline in your mind, you can just focus on getting everything out on the page. After seeing the rough layout, you can decide on the final set of points and remove everything else.

So, the last step is to review your mind map and refine it until you are satisfied with the outcome. In this stage, you’ll add all the smallest details to your mind map and establish important connections through lines.

In a mind map for essay writing, the last few points will be the evidence you use to support your arguments. It’s a good idea to mark the page numbers or other citation indicators so you don’t have to go looking for them later.

Your mind map should look something like the example below:

5. Add symbols and images to help you remember

While making mind maps for writing essays, it’s essential to use any techniques that can help you remember information better. A great way to ensure this is to use symbols and images to signify specific things.

You could develop a system of meanings for different signs. A star can represent important data figures, while a vertical arrow can highlight ascending or descending order. While you can utilize mind mapping tools and software to achieve this, it helps to use symbols that are personal to you. This way, it’s much easier to memorize things!

Let’s add some symbols to our mind map example and breathe life into it.

If you’d like us to add more mind mapping examples, let us know in the comments below!

Note: Keep your mind maps clean! Add only the most central points in one or two words rather than writing entire phrases or sentences. Making a cluttered and chaotic mind map serves no purpose. Keep your focus on the bigger picture and what you want to achieve through the mind map.

If you’re using the mind map for essay writing, you should know how to transfer ideas and information from your map to your essay. Knowing how to write a MEAL paragraph can help! 

Done brainstorming and writing your essay? Let’s make it perfect Get started

Free mind map templates

If you need innovative mind map ideas and templates, we have no shortage of them! Mind mapping for writing differs from mind mapping for a presentation or brainstorming session. Accordingly, mind mapping methods also differ from one another.

So, we’ve created four blank mind map templates to help you find the format that works best for you. Based on your requirements, you can choose from the mind map templates available below. 

1. Basic map that radiates outward

2. template to brainstorm a topic, 3. mind map for writing an essay, 4. mind map that uses arrows for cause-and-effect.

If you’ve created a mind map for your assignment and need an editing and proofreading service , we’re here to help.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is mind mapping software, what are the compulsory elements of a mind map, how do students create a mind map, what are some other names for a mind map, what is the best mind mapping method.

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Mind Map for Essay: Complete Guide With Useful Tips

Edraw content team, planning to create mind map for essays.

EdrawMind is a powerful tool that lets you create mind maps for essays. Learn from this essay writing tips guide to know everything about different essay writing. Try this mind-mapping tool today!

Essay writing is one of the most crucial parts of any academic curriculum. Most students consider writing an essay a dreadful task, but with the correct essay writing tips, one can easily master the techniques. In this article, we will show you the importance of mind maps for essay writing. Creating a mind map for essay writing helps academic students visualize the idea before they start writing it. Here, we will discuss different essays and illustrate how just by creating a mind map in EdrawMind, one can easily write long essays for their academic purpose.

1. What is mind mapping?

Before we begin understanding the benefits of making a mind map for essay writing, we should first understand mind mapping in detail.

In general, mind mapping is a diagramming technique that helps display information visually. Let us suppose you have to write about yourself, including your hobbies, details about your parents, the video games you love to play, and more. In this case, mind mapping would be the technique you will use to visualize the content going along in your 'about me' essay. Since most students prefer to outline their essays before actually converting them into long paragraphs, it is always considered good practice to make a mind map in and around the essay's primary topic.

There are a couple of ways that mind mapping benefits the students who intend to write a good essay.

• A student can visualize the entire essay even before starting to write it.
• A student can prioritize the segments based on their subtopics.s
• A student can go back to the mind map and understand if they have missed out on any important topic.

Once students have created a mind map, they can seemingly convert it into long paragraphs for an essay. In most cases, if a student can add the mind map to the essay, it will help the reader understand the important topics covered in the submitted long piece.

2. Mind Map Helps with All Types of Essays

In academic writing, there are six different types of essay writing. As a student, you can create a mind map for different essays and later use these steps to write the essay itself. Here, we have covered all the six different types of essays and helped you understand how mind maps benefit someone who intends to write astonishing essays.

1. Argumentative Essay

An argumentative essay is a form of essay writing that requires a student to go analytical by investigating a topic, collecting the data, generating the points, evaluating all the gathered evidence, and establishing a position on the topic. As you see, an argumentative essay requires the student to go in-depth about their research. If the student works on a mind map for an argumentative essay, they will be able to properly create different segments while outlining their investigative and evaluative stages.

When a student creates a mind map, it facilitates a visual sketch of the entire material the student has gathered to write the argumentative essay. In addition, by creating a mind map, the student ensures that they have all the relevant information before proceeding to write the essay.

2. Admissions Essay

Admission essays are essays that one writes to get themselves enrolled at any particular college or university. Admission essays mostly consist of a statement of purpose (SOP), a student's academic record, a student's record of extra-curricular activities, references, and personal details. An admission essay is considered a very important piece of writing because it allows the college or university to know the student better and learn more about any specific situation.

When a student is writing an admission essay, creating a mind map is extremely handy because it allows the students to jot down the details of all of their achievements in a manner that resonates with the admission process. In a mind map, the student can dedicate a specific portion to their SOP, add their academic record in other subtopics, and then work ahead to showcase their achievements. Once the mind map for the admission essay is created, the student can follow the basic steps to writing an essay.

3. Persuasive Essay

A persuasive essay is a type of essay where a researcher or a student supports their content with facts and logical reasons to sway readers to a particular standpoint. In general, while writing a persuasive essay, the primary intention of the writer is to persuade the reader and convince them on a specific issue.

As you see, a persuasive essay requires a detailed logical argument and an emotional appeal. Most students tend to create a mind map before writing their persuasive essay to find the loopholes in the early stages of essay writing. A persuasive essay consists of three important parts: issue, side, and argument. By creating a mind map for an essay, a student can create these subtopics and work on them individually.

4. Compare-and-Contrast Essay

When students need to point out the similarities and differences between two or more subjects, they create a compare-and-contrast essay around it. Writing a compare-and-contrast essay is great for illustrating what separates and unites related topics, particularly those topics or concepts that are often misinterpreted by each other. In a compare-and-contrast essay, a student does not choose two specific topics to provide a contrast. Rather, they compare and contrast two types of similar topics to highlight subtle differences. For instance, when someone has to compare and contrast between watermelon and muskmelon, they will choose two different breeds of dogs and cats to convey the exact difference.

By creating a contrast-and-compare essay mind map, one can easily note the differences and similarities between two subjects. A mind map will help brainstorm the topic, collect the sources, and outline the essay structure.

5. Personal Essay

As the name suggests, a student writes about their experiences without having to prove any particular point in a personal essay. In personal essays, the author only intends to introduce the topic to the reader and make them aware of the subject and the theme. In most cases, a personal essay is based on feelings, emotions, personal experiences, and personal opinions.

While creating a mind map for a personal essay, the author can work on some important elements, like creating a compelling hook, presenting an engaging story, introducing interesting characters, having an immersive setting, and presenting meaningful conversations. With the help of a mind map, one can easily separate all these elements into subtopics and work on them individually. This way, they can present a more compelling story without missing out on important details.

6. Expository Essay

An expository essay is a long-form essay where the author's primary intent is to explain or describe a particular topic by providing factual information. When an author starts preparing for an expository essay, they start by investigating an idea, evaluating the gathered evidence, expounding on the idea, and concisely presenting an argument. Often, students get confused between expository and argumentative essay writing. The core difference between the two genres is that an expository essay will contain the information and explain the topic in brief. At the same time, an argumentative essay will contain the writer's personal ideas, facts, and other statistics.

Since expository essays contain information based on investigation and evaluation, creating a mind map for such essay writing is recommended. Using a mind map, the author can easily visualize all the evidence related to the information and brainstorm the topic before starting the writing process.

3. Mind Map for Essay: Step by Step

Now that you have understood how students can easily visualize their ideas by creating mind maps for essays, let us give you a detailed step-by-step description of how you can use mind maps for essay writing. It should be noted here that these are generic steps and can easily be applied to all the different types of essay writing.

1 Find Essay's Topic:

The first step in essay writing is coming up with a unique idea or a topic less explored. If you work on an essay topic that is already covered several times by different authors, your research might be hard-pressed to develop a unique standpoint. Instead, it is recommended to come up with the essay topic you are personally interested in, or at least something you can talk about without major complications. Choosing your essay's topic that is close to you will make the entire task of essay writing less monotonous.

• Create a mind map in a tool like EdrawMind and name the primary topic, 'Essay Topic.' Now start adding different ideas as its subtopics. These subtopics can be anything that you are closely associated with. For instance, you can add different ideas that your professors might have suggested or some ideas that were previously discussed in the classroom.
• Add your own areas of interest to the mind map and try to connect the dots with the ideas that you must have added in the previous step. Once you have a few good ideas that intersect with your interest and the ideas that were previously discussed, you can start weighing them against one another by noting down their respective pros and cons. Remove the ideas that have several cons and start working on that essay topic with maximum pros.

2 Commence Research Process:

Research is one of the most important processes in essay writing. At the same time, students often get confused between different arguments and counterarguments presented to them from different research papers. Students often waste an enormous amount of time just trying to figure out how to put all the different information into one piece. What all these students need is to make a mind map for essay writing where they can easily collect and structure their data and information.

• Create a mind map for different sources and make additional notes in these mind maps as you go on through the text. EdrawMind provides you with a comment option that helps in taking additional notes as and when they are required.
• Sometimes, students create one single mind map where they list all of their resources and branch them out for every quote and information, they want to use in the essay paper.

3 Outlining Essay Paper in a Mind Map:

Before you start writing your essay, you first create an outline of your paper that will help create a coherent structure of your arguments, counter arguments, examples, and sources. By using a mind map, one can easily review the outline and access the information they require in their essay.

Creating a mind map to outline your essay ensures that one will walk through sources and information more efficiently. It also enables the author to find and review information whenever they are stuck at any point.

4. Useful Tips for Your Essay

Essay writing can be a fun exercise if you follow some of the general steps to writing an essay. A couple of important essay writing tips ensure that your final submission has no plagiarism, no errors, has a proper citation, and does not divert from the primary topic. Some of the most useful essay writing tips are:

• Plan & Schedule: After coming up with the right topic for the essay, a student must allocate proper time and schedule their research hours. Most of the time, students underestimate the amount of work required to conduct proper research to write a professional essay and end up submitting an essay that will fetch them poor grades. It is always advisable to plan and schedule the essay writing in such a way that they get proper time for researching, and a good amount of time in writing, followed by sufficient time to conduct the second round of editing.
• Structure, Flow, & Focus: If you have not decided on the right flow of your essay, chances are your reader might not be able to relate to it. So, whenever you start writing the essay, ensure that you have properly summarized the core introduction and main body and presented your case that leads towards a proper conclusion. By structuring and focusing on the flow, each section of your essay will add a definitive value to the argument that you are presenting. At the same time, you should also perform multiple revisions just to confirm that the different parts of your essay fit together as a logical whole.
• Proper Style and Formatting: A good essay is about the argument and the narrative structure, but at the same time, the style tends to influence your readers, as that is the very first thing the reader will see when they look at your essay submission. Before writing down the essay, understand the formatting and styling criteria from your professor. You can even consult them about the language guide and the style that you have to follow while submitting the essay. It might look like a very simple or a basic step, but when an author submits an essay that has a proper table of content, introduction pages, bibliography, indexes, annexures, and references, the reader will get an idea that the author has done their proper research before writing the essay.
• Visualize the idea: In most cases, authors start writing the essay as soon as they get an idea. However, if the content is large and the project demands multiple rounds of revisions, it is highly recommended to go ahead and create a mind map. A mind map for essays will help the author visualize the content in a concrete manner. At the same time, by creating a mind map, you will be able to follow the timeline and have sufficient time to make revisions.

5. Key Takeaways

Regardless of the course of study and institution, essay writing is one of the most important curriculum activities for all grades. Even the graduates and postgraduate students need to submit their research paper that somehow starts by writing long-form essays. In this elaborate guide, we walked you through different types of essay writing and helped you understand how making a mind map for an essay is not only a logical activity but also saves you time and other important resources. Instead of wasting your time and money on complicated tools, you should start using EdrawMind, which has hundreds of templates for educational, business, and personal use.

Unlike other tools, EdrawMind has an amazing user interface that provides easy drag-and-drop features. From changing the theme of your mind map to adding different comments in subtopics, you can modify your mind map in any way you desire. So, what are you waiting for? Download EdrawMind today and make a mind map for the essay. You can also try using EdrawMind Online, which comes with a personal cloud.

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The Benefits of Mind Mapping for Writing (And How You Can Get Started Right Away)

Crafting a bestselling novel isn’t for the faint of heart. And not just because of all the writing, editing, and marketing. Trying to keep all those plot points, characters, settings, and other details straight can be a major challenge. And the further in you get, the more difficult it becomes. 

Fortunately, there is a way to streamline your writing process and reign in the complexity of your story’s world. Mind mapping for writing can help you get organized, stay focused, and write faster. And that means you’ll reach the finish line of your story sooner. 

But mind maps aren’t just for writing fiction. They can be used for all types of writing. And you don’t even need a stash of pen and paper. With mind mapping software at your side, you’ll be able to write better blog posts, research papers, and more .

Keep reading to discover how a mind mapping tool could be just the jumpstart your writing process has been needing.

What is mind mapping anyway?

Mind mapping is a technique that can be used to brainstorm ideas, organize your thoughts , or remember something more easily. The basic idea is to create a map of your thoughts by connecting related ideas with lines and arrows. This can help you to see the connections between different ideas and to remember information more effectively. 

Mind maps come in a variety of styles, from timeline mind maps to Venn diagrams . And each kind of graphic organizer offers unique benefits.

How can mapping be useful in writing fiction?

As any novelist knows, writing a book is no easy feat. You don’t just have to come up with a compelling story. You’ve also got to keep track of all the different characters and plot threads. 

Mind mapping can be a helpful tool for keeping everything organized. By creating a mind map, you can visualize the different elements of your story. 

For example, you might brainstorm story ideas for a single book or an entire series. Then, you could create a timeline mind map to give yourself a clear picture of when events take place. You could even include significant events that happened before or after your story. Mind maps can also help you flesh out your characters. They offer a place to describe them physically, psychologically, and in other ways. 

And with mind mapping software , you can even add images and links to show relationships to other characters or places.

How do you create a mind map for a story?

Want to know specifically how to mind map for fiction?

First, you’ll need to think through the kinds of mind maps you’ll need. Will character maps be beneficial? Could you use mind maps describing particular scenes or settings? Would a timeline be helpful? How about a mind map that divides your story into its various beats?

Once you’ve decided which mind maps will be best for your story, choose mind map templates that fit your need. Mindomo has a host of templates specifically for literature and writing. There, you’ll find everything from characterization study maps to story maps and more.

Once you’ve finished your mind maps, they can be used as a guide when writing the actual story. They’ll make it easy to ensure all of the important elements are included.

But a mind mapping tool won’t just help you keep each individual story straight. You can also use them to track your progress, setting yourself milestones for each section of the book. And if you ever get stuck, mind maps can provide a handy way to jump-start your creative juices. After all, they’re the perfect tool for brainstorming.

How can mind mapping be useful in other types of writing?

Maybe you’re not a fiction writer.  That doesn’t mean mind mapping isn’t for you. Mind mapping benefits extend to any type of writing.

Start by brainstorming your ideas and then organize them into categories. Once you have the structure of your post, use your mind map to identify your central topic. You can also use the mind map to come up with good ideas for supporting points. Then, you can add them as child branches on your map.

With a clear outline of your post or article, it will be much easier to write the actual content. And if there’s something you’d like to add or change while writing, simply update your mind map accordingly.

For maximum efficiency, you can also use a digital mind map for outlining and organizing the flow of the post. And you may even be able to create a mind map to illustrate your central topic or a supporting idea. Having all these elements at your fingertips will ensure that your blog posts are well thought out and organized. You can use mind mapping to structure an essay with ease.

With a mind map, you’ll save yourself from wasting valuable time and energy on unnecessary rewrites. Having a clear plan in place before starting your writing makes it much easier to stay organized. That way, you can produce better content faster. 

Use mind maps to structure your paragraphs:

Use mind mapping software like Mindomo to create mind maps

While mind mapping may sound like a complicated process, it can actually be quite simple. All you need is a piece of paper and a pen, and you can get started. However, pen and paper will only take you so far. If you really want to take full advantage of creating a mind map, you’ll need mind mapping software.

Mind mapping software like Mindomo makes it easy to create mind maps. You can start with a blank canvas or use one of the many mind map templates available. The software provides a variety of tools for adding text, images, links, and other information to your mind map. You can also customize the appearance of your mind map, including the color scheme, shape, font, size, and lines. Best of all, mind mapping is a fun and effective way to learn and remember information.

No matter what you’re looking to write, Mindomo has mind map examples and templates you can use to get started. Simply choose a template that fits your needs, add your own central topic, and edit it to your heart’s content.

That’s everything you need to know about creating a mind map for your next project.  From brainstorming ideas to tracking progress and getting organized, mind mapping can be a valuable tool for any type of writer. With the help of mind mapping software like Mindomo, you’ll be able to take your writing to the next level. 

So, what are you waiting for? Start mind mapping today and see how it can help you produce better stories, articles, and papers than ever before.

Keep it smart, simple, and creative! The Mindomo Team

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Mind Maps for Essay Writing: A Comprehensive Guide with Examples and Tips

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Mastering essay writing is an essential skill for academic success. One valuable tool to enhance this skill is mind mapping, a dynamic and visual approach to organize thoughts. This article will guide you through the benefits, creation process, practical examples, and expert tips for effective mind mapping.

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Understanding Mind Maps: Definition and Benefits

A Mind Map is a powerful graphic technique that provides a universal key to unlock the potential of the brain. It harnesses the full range of cortical skills – word, image, number, logic, rhythm, color, and spatial awareness – in a single, uniquely powerful manner.

Utilizing mind maps in essay writing offers several benefits. Not only does it provide a visually engaging way to organize ideas, but it also enhances understanding and memory recall. The science behind this phenomenon lies in the way our brain works. By representing information spatially and with images and color, mind mapping stimulates the brain in a much richer and more varied way than traditional note-taking.

How to Create a Mind Map for an Essay

Mind mapping is an easy process that can be mastered with practice. Here's a step-by-step guide:

1. Start in the center : Write your main idea or essay prompt in the center of the page and draw a circle around it.

2. Branch out : From your central idea, draw lines out towards the edges of your page representing the main thoughts or ideas related to your topic. At the end of each line, write a single word or phrase that summarizes the point, then draw a circle around that word or phrase.

3. Add details : Draw smaller lines branching off from each main idea line that represent supporting details. At the end of these lines, write a brief detail or example and circle it.

4. Color your thoughts : Add colors to your different ideas to highlight them. Use pictures or symbols wherever applicable.

Essential tools for mind mapping range from simple pen and paper to advanced mind mapping software like Boardmix or EdrawMind.

How to Use Mind Maps for Effective Essay Writing

Mastering the use of mind maps for essay writing entails three primary steps – identifying an apt essay topic, kickstarting the research process, and finally, outlining your essay within a mind map. Here's a detailed exploration of these stages:

Step 1: Using a Mind Map to Find a Good Topic for Your Essay

Selecting an engaging and manageable topic forms the bedrock of an impactful essay. Mind mapping can be instrumental in this process by helping to generate and connect ideas creatively and logically.

Brainstorming Topic Ideas with a Mind Map

To brainstorm topics, start by jotting down a general area of interest at the center of your mind map. Let's say, "Climate Change." Now, let your mind flow freely and create branches from this central node, each representing a different aspect or question related to Climate Change - "Causes," "Effects," "Solutions," "Controversies," etc. From these primary branches, draw secondary branches for further thoughts, arguments, or subtopics. After creating this mind map, assess the feasibility and interest level of each potential essay topic, and choose the one that resonates the most with you.

Step 2: Start the Research Process

Once you've chosen your topic, it's time to delve into research. A well-researched essay strengthens your arguments and adds credibility to your work.

Collecting Research in a Mind Map

Begin by creating a new mind map with your chosen topic at the center. As you start reading relevant resources - books, articles, or websites - extract key points and note them as branches on your mind map. For instance, under the "Causes" branch for Climate Change, you could add sub-branches like "Industrialization," "Deforestation," or "Carbon Emissions." Under each of these, note relevant data or quotations from your sources. This approach helps to visualize how various bits of information relate to each other and makes it easier to structure your essay later.

Step 3: Outlining Essay Paper in a Mind Map

Having gathered adequate research material, it's time to structure it coherently through an essay outline. Creating this outline within a mind map ensures that no crucial point is overlooked and allows you to visualize the logical flow of your essay.

From your research mind map, create another one specifically for your essay outline. The central node should be your essay title or thesis statement. Create major branches for each key argument or point you plan to discuss. Attach supporting evidence, examples, or sub-arguments as sub-branches. Under each major branch, ensure that there is a claim or unique viewpoint that you will defend or explain in your essay.

In essence, this mind map will act as the skeleton of your essay, providing a clear roadmap for your writing process.

5 Examples of Mind Maps for Essay Writing

Analyzing examples of mind maps for essay writing can provide a better understanding of how this powerful brainstorming tool works. Here are five detailed examples that demonstrate different ways to utilize mind mapping in academic writing.

Example 1: Argumentative Essay Mind Map

Let's consider a mind map developed for an argumentative essay about "Climate Change". The central node, in this case, states "Climate Change". From this central idea, branches emerge that represent the main arguments for the essay. One branch could say "Evidence of Climate Change," with sub-branches exploring different scientific studies that support climate change. Another branch might state "Effects of Climate Change," delving into the impact on polar ice caps, rising sea levels, and wildlife extinction. A third branch may argue "Solutions to Climate Change," examining renewable energy sources, deforestation reduction, and government policies. Each branch further divides into smaller branches providing details, examples, or counterarguments.

Example 2: Descriptive Essay Mind Map

Now, imagine a descriptive essay about "A Winter Morning". The central node would depict the essay's main theme. Major branches could represent sensory details, such as sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. For instance, the sight branch might have sub-branches like "white snow," "gray skies," or "bare trees." Each of these would break down into more detailed descriptions.

Example 3: Compare and Contrast Essay Mind Map

In a compare and contrast essay on "Traditional Classrooms vs. Online Learning," each of these educational modes could form a major branch from the central node. Sub-branches would then depict aspects for comparison, such as learning flexibility, student-teacher interaction, technology usage, assessment methods, etc. Each of these sub-branches would further branch out into specific points for both traditional classrooms and online learning environments.

Example 4: Cause and Effect Essay Mind Map

For a cause and effect essay on "Smoking", one major branch might represent "Causes of Smoking" such as peer pressure, stress, and advertising influence. Another major branch could depict the "Effects of Smoking," branching out into health impacts (lung cancer, heart disease), financial costs, and societal effects. Each point could be further elaborated through additional branches.

Example 5: Narrative Essay Mind Map

A narrative essay on "My First Camping Trip" would involve major branches for each key event in the story's progression - setting up camp, exploring the forest, facing a wildlife encounter, and handling a campfire accident. Sub-branches of these main events would provide specific details and dialogue to enrich the narrative.

Some Tips and Tricks for Effective Mind Mapping

For effective mind mapping, follow these tips:

• Be creative and make your map vibrant.
• Use single words or simple phrases for information brevity.
• Keep your mind map clear by using radial hierarchy or outlines to embrace your branches.
• Review regularly to reinforce memory.

While creating a mind map, avoid cluttering information on one branch. Use balance across your mind map while distributing information.

Reinventing Essay Writing with Mind Maps

Mind mapping , when mastered, can be a game-changer in your academic writing. It helps organize thoughts, enhances memory and understanding, and can make the essay writing process smoother and more efficient.

Through this guide, you've learned the benefits of mind mapping, how to create a mind map, seen some examples, got expert tips, and learned how to incorporate it into your essay writing process. Now it's time to put this knowledge into practice and start revolutionizing your essay writing with mind maps!

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How to Use Mind Map In Writing – A Thorough Guide

This guide is brought to you by Zen Mind Map, the simplest mind map maker.

Before we can delve into using a mind map for writing, we must first understand what a mind map is. Apparently, there are many self-published authors who launch successful book releases by a creative writing exercise called mind mapping.

Mind mapping is one of many idea-generating strategies that rely on the association, which then comes out as a diagram with figures, facts, concept maps, phrases, keywords, etc. Overall, it is a powerful writing habit inspiration, especially for first-time authors.

There can never be two similar mind maps, even if you use the same mapping software . However, there are some arbitrary steps that you must follow for this approach:

• Choosing a central idea
• Creating ideas connecting to this subject
• Adding in colors / images to associate with these ideas
• Rearranging the map so that it doesn’t look confusing
• Reviewing and storing the map for a subsequent writing process

How To Use Mind Map For Writing Process?

Using a mind map to find your topic, choose the central idea .

Indeed, the very first thing to do is to decide on the backbone of your essay, which is the subject. The best approach is to pick a topic that allows you to provide new findings/conclusions. 

The ideal topic should interest you, as it makes the process much less unbearable. At this stage, put something like “My Essay” in the center of your piece of paper.

Write Down Areas Of Interest (Potential Topics) 

The next thing to do is surround the center with ideas, which is very easy if you have some mind mapping tools. They can range from suggestions from your professor, subjects discussed in class to anything relevant.

Subsequently, quickly start noting down some areas in which you find interesting - They can be anything, as it does not need to be related to the main topic at this step strictly. Remember to use mind map templates with a clear color scheme.

All you need to do is write down anything that pops up in your mind, preferably instinctively. 

Review Their Relationships/Intersection 

Now you have two sets of branches, one being the relevant ideas and the other being your personal interest. Find areas where these two sets intersect with each other.

This process results in a set of ideas that are both relevant to your goal and your interest. 

Weigh Them Against Each Other With Pros And Cons 

The next step is to weigh every idea in the set, analyzing each idea’s pros and cons. 

Start The Elimination Process

Start the elimination process once you get the pros and cons of every single concept. Compare the list of advantages and disadvantages carefully, but mostly on the disadvantages. 

Yet, remember that challenges are inevitable, but they should never hinder you from turning in your work.

Eliminate the choices until there is only one.

Using A Mind Map Standard To Compile Research Materials

Make a new branch for each source .

With this approach, the topic will be listed in the center of your map, and the child branches will be the secondary sources. From these branches, create smaller ones consisting of the secondary source’s topic, central idea, and quotes.

This method most benefits projects that do not require you to focus entirely on primary source material. Instead, find other similar types of writing and present the link between them to enforce your point.

Make A Branch For Each Area Of Your Topic

There are some involvements from the secondary sources, but they are not prominent.

Note everything you need onto the map while working through the source’s text. You need to work a lot more, but the payback will absolutely be worth it. 

Using A Mind Map To Layout Your Outline

You will get a well-structured thesis outline out from the mind map. It allows you to generate a coherent structure consisting of examples, quotes, arguments, counter-arguments, etc., without losing grasp.

The visual representations of mind maps mean that you can quickly review your outline whenever you need to. All it takes is one look, and you can track your entire text structure from the thesis statement.

However, there certainly are some specific things that you need to pay attention to for a better creative process:

• Put a link between each topic with a corresponding research map created independently. 
• Next, put in some notes or deadlines at each level, ensuring that the writing project is never behind schedule. 
• Going over the deadline is always the clearest sign of bad writing.
• The last thing to do is export your finished mind map for easier access.

The Rules Of Mind Map For Writing Process

• The subject you want to discuss should always be at the center of the map. 
• Branches should be going out, each representing one single idea relating to the subject.
• The last rule to keep in mind is the use of visuals such as images, icons, and color themes. They will serve as mental triggers, sparking more ideas within your brain to create a positive loop within your brain.

What Are The Benefits Of Mind Map For Writing?

• Newbie authors will have a complete overview of the entire topic and a clear flow of ideas. 
• The second benefit of mind maps is that they let you see how the main topic connects with its supporting pieces. This results in an easier time planning resource materials and when to use them.
• Finally, this approach provides a much more enjoyable and attractive format to supply information to your brain. You will, in turn, remember the information more clearly, improving your writing potential.

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Get Inspired With These 13 Mind Map Examples

Mind mapping is best known as a brainstorming exercise. You start with a central topic—surrounded by a bubble—then expand your ideas by adding additional bubbles that are each connected together with lines to create relationships.

But mind mapping is useful for much more than just brainstorming. You can use mind maps to learn or teach new information faster, plan a meeting, create an outline for an essay or blog post, convey complex information more clearly, and much more.

To help you come up with new ideas for how to use mind maps, we’ve pulled together 13 creative mind map examples you can use for inspiration.

But First, Here’s How to Create a Mind Map

There are lots of ways to create mind maps. The most basic approach is to just use pen and paper. Start with a central bubble, and then expand outward from there, adding as many ideas as you can in subsequent bubbles and connecting related ideas together with lines.

And while the pen and paper method works for basic mind mapping, it’s not an ideal tool. You may run out of room on the paper. You can’t easily reorganize or rearrange bubbles. And the end result isn’t likely going to be clean enough to share it with others.

For these reasons, a simpler way to create a mind map is to use a mind mapping tool like MindMeister .

MindMeister makes it easy to build professional mind maps that can be as large as you need them to be, are easy to reorganize, and support features that pen and paper simply can’t, such as hyperlinking your bubbles, adding images, and collaborating on your mind map with others.

Build beautiful mind maps quickly and easily

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13 Mind Map Examples to Use for Inspiration

There are an endless number of ways to use mind maps in all aspects of your life. To help you get inspired to create your next mind map, we put together this list of 13 mind map examples.

1. Brainstorming

Suffering from writer’s block? Not sure what to name your new app? At a loss for ideas for your next essay assignment? Creating a mind map is a great way to brainstorm, get your mind working, and generate ideas via associations.

Find a quiet space where you can feel creative, start with a central bubble, and then create additional bubbles as ideas flow into your mind. By the time you’re finished, you’ll either have an idea you’re excited about or lots of new ideas to share and consider.

Get step-by-step instructions on how to use mind maps for brainstorming in our online brainstorming with mind maps tutorial .

2. Writing an essay

You can use a brainstorming mind map to come up with ideas for an essay you need to write, and then you can take it a step further and use a mind map to figure out what you should write about in your essay.

Just start with your main topic in the center and then branch out with ideas for topics you’ll cover in your essay. And if you’re using an online mind mapping tool like MindMeister , you can even link your bubbles to the sources you plan to cite in your essay.

Want to see a few more mind map examples? Check out our guide to mind maps for essay writing . Or if you’ve graduated from essay writing and are working as a professional writer, consider these mind mapping tips for bloggers .

3. Taking notes

While taking a class, attending a workshop, or listening to a talk or lecture, you could jot notes down in a notebook, but you’ll recall what you learned better if you take notes in a mind map, instead.

Say a topic comes up frequently during the lecture. With linear notes, there’s no way to connect new things you learned back to the original notes you took on that topic. That’s not an issue with mind maps because all of your notes stem from related topics.

Learn more about how to take notes with mind maps—and see some additional example note-taking mind maps—in our guide to effective note-taking in lectures and class .

4. Learning a new language

Because mind maps are visual, they help you recall information better. For this reason, they’re a great tool when you’re trying to learn a new language—whether you’re taking a language class, preparing for an international vacation, or just expanding your knowledge for fun.

When you’re at a loss for the right word in a new language, it’s easier to picture the mind map you created while learning to come up with the word you’re looking for.

Find additional tips and mind map examples in our guide to learning a second language with mind maps .

5. Planning an event

Events—anything from a wedding to a major industry conference—can be notoriously difficult to plan. There are a lot of details to keep track of.

Using a mind map to plan your event is a great way to collect options for your event, evaluate those options when making decisions, keep track of everything that needs to be done, and share your plans with others.

Discover more tips and mind map examples in our guide to event planning with mind maps .

6. Organizing information

A great way to use mind mapping as a business professional is for organizing information. If you’re trying to create a knowledge base for your business, a great way to get started is to create a knowledge map .

Or maybe you’re a lawyer or paralegal who’s planning a case. The mind map example above shows how several lawyers use MindMeister to plan their cases, including the evidence they’ll share and the questions they’ll ask people who testify.

7. Teaching mind mapping

Students can use mind mapping while in school to learn, study, brainstorm, organize, take better notes, and much more. Then, they can use them throughout the rest of their lives at both home and work to do things like plan projects, organize their finances, and host productive meetings.

For this reason, mind mapping is a great technique to teach to your students, and you can even use a mind map to teach about mind maps . You can also use mind maps to plan your lessons or to encourage group work and group brainstorming.

Want more mind map examples for teachers? Here’s how one teacher uses MindMeister to inspire students and how another uses it to activate global citizens in a 5th-grade classroom.

8. Studying for an exam

Creating a mind map is a great way to study for an upcoming exam. It forces you to review the information you’ve learned and look at that information critically to form connections . Plus, the visual nature of a mind map makes information easier to recall when you’re actually taking the exam, which could improve your grades.

You might also want to check out these 10 ways students can use mind maps or our guide to staying organized at college using MindMeister .

9. Planning a business strategy

When it’s time to plan your business strategy for next year—or to plan your strategy for the first time—creating a mind map is a great first step. It helps you brainstorm ideas and keep track of your research, and it’s a great visual to reference after you start implementing your strategy.

And if you’re using a tool like MindMeister , you can easily share your strategy mind map with other members of your team to collect additional ideas, receive feedback via comments, and ultimately turn your mind map entries into tasks using MindMeister’s MeisterTask integration .

Want to learn more? Here are four example business strategy mind maps to use for inspiration.

10. Designing user experiences

Another great way to use a mind map is as a substitute for a flow chart when designing user experiences. The mind map above shows an example of how customers might flow through a mobile app, but it’s just one of many ways to brainstorm and outline customer experiences through mind mapping.

Other ways to use UX mind maps include outlining the navigation of a website and structuring all of its pages, determining where blog posts and landing pages fall within the buyer’s journey, figuring out how to connect blog posts together via hubs and internal links, and much more.

11. Planning your finances

Need to create a budget or plan for sending your kids to college, for an upcoming vacation, or for retirement? A mind map is a great way to outline all of the expenses you need to account for.

Mind maps are such a good tool for financial planning that there are even financial planning firms that use MindMeister to present the financial plans they’ve developed to their clients, replacing spreadsheets and piles of paper with a one-page, accessible and visual roadmap.

Mind maps are a great way to make large amounts of information more accessible to clients. Want to learn more? Check out our guide to using mind maps for client presentations .

12. Preparing a meeting agenda

One of the best ways to conduct effective meetings is to distribute a meeting agenda to all participants ahead of time. This lets people prepare for the meeting, write down any questions they might like to ask, or submit ideas for additional topics they might want to discuss.

And if you use MindMeister to create your meeting agenda, you can take notes during your meeting and easily convert action items to assignable tasks in MeisterTask .

13. Onboarding new employees

You don’t want to be the company that shows employees to their desks and then leaves them to fend for themselves and figure out what they need to know on their own, so consider creating a mind map for employee onboarding.

You can hand your finished mind map off to your HR representatives and recruiters to use as a sort-of checklist they can reference to make sure they do everything that needs to be done to ensure a smooth onboarding process for every one of your new hires.

Want to learn more? Check out our guide to using MindMeister as a recruitment and HR tool .

Discover Even More Mind Map Examples

Want to see even more creative and inspiring ways to use mind maps? Check out our Public Maps Universe : a library that contains more than 300,000 example mind maps created by MindMeister users.

The best part: if you like any of the examples, you can copy them to your MindMeister account in just two clicks to start editing your mind map instantly.

Use mind maps

at home, work, school — everywhere!

How to Make a Mind Map to Unleash Your Imagination

Did you know that mind map ideas for students, a technique that has revolutionized the way students approach their studies, were inspired by the intricate structure of the human brain? Just as our brains interconnect ideas through billions of neurons and synapses, mind maps offer a powerful visual tool to mimic this organic process of idea generation and organization.

The concept was first popularized by British author and psychologist Tony Buzan in the 1960s. Buzan was inspired by the brain's natural inclination to think in a nonlinear and associative manner. He realized that traditional note-taking methods often failed to capture the true essence of how our minds work. In response, he developed mind maps as a way to replicate the web of thoughts and connections that occur within the human brain.

How to Make a Mind Map: Short Description

In this complete guide, we'll explore how to use the mind mapping method to assist you in organizing your thoughts more effectively and generating fresh ideas. Whether you're tackling a challenging research project, preparing for exams, or simply aiming to enhance your brainstorming skills, this guide will revolutionize your approach to schoolwork. By following these steps, you'll harness the power of mind mapping to excel in your studies:

Step 1 : Choose a Focus Topic

Step 2 : Start with a Central Node

Step 3 : Branch Out Key Ideas

Step 4 : Add Sub-branches

Step 5 : Use Visual Elements

Step 6 : Color and Highlight

Step 7 : Organize and Align

Step 8 : Review and Refine

Keep reading for a deeper dive into each of these steps and discover valuable insights!

What Is a Mind Map for Students

Within the mind mapping definition, it is a dynamic and creative tool for students designed to transform the way they organize and interact with information. Unlike traditional note-taking or linear text, a mind map offers a visually captivating approach to capturing and connecting ideas and concepts. At its heart, it's a visual thinking technique that mirrors the intricate way your brain processes information. The true magic of a mind map lies in its simplicity, allowing you to engage your cognitive functions in a more profound and enjoyable way.

Picture this: As you engage in the process of drawing mind maps, you're not just compiling information; you're actively participating in a process that's both analytical and artistic. This unique blend of creativity and logic enriches your thinking and problem-solving skills. It's an enjoyable way to study, brainstorm, plan, and even remember information.

Now, let's take a closer look at what a mind map actually looks like. Imagine a visual representation of interconnected ideas and concepts branching out from a central theme. Each branch represents a key idea or topic, while sub-branches delve into supporting details and related concepts. While it might appear a tad chaotic at first glance, mind maps are designed to emulate the nonlinear nature of thought. Once you embrace this unconventional approach to note-taking, you'll discover its transformative power in enhancing your learning process. So, let our essay writing service team dive deeper into the world of mind maps and explore how they can revolutionize your academic journey.

Exploring the Benefits of Mind Maps

Now that we've established what mind maps are let's delve into the benefits of mind mapping in education, including how they can aid in learning how to write a reflection paper .

• Enhanced Creativity : Mind maps encourage free thinking and association, fostering creativity in problem-solving and idea generation.
• Improved Understanding : The visual nature of mind maps makes complex topics more understandable by breaking them down into digestible components.
• Efficient Note-Taking : Mind maps streamline note-taking during lectures, helping you capture key points while maintaining a clear structure.
• Enhanced Memory Retention : Creating and reviewing mind maps enhances memory recall, making it easier to remember important information for exams.
• Effective Organization : Mind maps provide a structured overview of a subject, making it easier to see connections and relationships between ideas.
• Boosted Productivity : By helping you prioritize tasks and set goals, brainstorming mind map ideas increases productivity in both academic and personal pursuits.
• Enhanced Problem Solving : Mind maps facilitate the breakdown of complex problems into manageable components, aiding in effective decision-making.
• Visual Appeal : Their colorful and engaging format makes mind maps visually appealing, making studying a more enjoyable experience.

How To Create A Mind Map to Boost Your Creativity

In this section, let's unlock the steps on how to make a mind map—a vibrant and dynamic tool that will revolutionize the way you approach learning and idea generation.

Step 1: Choose a Focus Topic

• Begin your mind map adventure by selecting a central topic. This is the big idea, the core concept around which your mind map will revolve. It's like choosing the star of the show!

Step 2: Start with a Central Node

• Imagine this central topic as the heart of your mind map. Write it down in the center of your canvas or paper and draw a circle or box around it. This is your mind map's anchor point.

Step 3: Branch Out Key Ideas

• Now, let's breathe life into your mind map, drawing inspiration from mind map examples. Imagine branches sprouting from the central node, like the limbs of a tree. These branches represent your key ideas or main categories related to your central topic.

Step 4: Add Sub-branches

• Each key idea deserves its own set of branches. These are like mini-branches growing from the main ones. They contain supporting details, examples, or subtopics. It's like building a family tree for your ideas.

Step 5: Use Visual Elements

• Make your mind map a masterclass in visual analysis by incorporating images, symbols, or icons. These visual elements add depth and personality to your map, making it more captivating and enhancing your ability to analyze and understand complex ideas.

Step 6: Color and Highlight

• Let your artistic side shine! Color-code your branches and sub-branches. Highlight essential points to draw attention. It's like giving your mind map a vibrant coat of creativity.

Step 7: Organize and Align

• Arrange your branches in an orderly manner. This organization ensures your mind map is easy to follow. It's akin to tidying up your room – everything has its place.

Step 8: Review and Refine

• Your mind map is a living creation. As you use it, periodically revisit and refine it. Update information, add new branches, or make it more visually appealing. It's like nurturing a garden, tending to it so it flourishes.

Ever Thought Your Assignments Could Use a Touch of Mind Map Marvel?

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7 Mind Map Ideas for Students

In this section, we'll introduce you to 7 practical mind map ideas that can supercharge your study skills and help you succeed in your academic pursuits. Whether you're looking for better ways to take notes, brainstorm ideas, or tackle complex subjects, these strategies have got you covered. Let's dive right in and explore how mind maps can be your secret weapon for student success.

Brainstorming

Imagine your mind map as a launchpad for creativity. Mind map brainstorming encourages free thinking and idea generation. Start with a central idea and let your thoughts branch out like fireworks, sparking new connections and innovative solutions. It's the ultimate tool for turning your wildest ideas into actionable plans.

Note-taking

Mind maps transform the way you capture information. They replace linear note-taking with a dynamic, visual format. Use them during lectures to organize key points and concepts effectively. With mind maps, your notes become engaging visual snapshots, making revision a breeze and improving information retention.

Creative Writing

They're also perfect for crafting compelling stories, characters, and plotlines, as demonstrated by mind map examples. Starting with a central theme, branch out to explore character backgrounds, plot twists, and thematic elements. Whether you're penning a novel, screenplay, or poetry, real-life mind map examples can inspire your storytelling journey.

Language Learning

Mastering a new language becomes more engaging with mind maps. Use them to visualize vocabulary, grammar rules, and language concepts. Connect words and phrases to form a web of associations, making language acquisition a dynamic and enjoyable process.

Book Summaries

Mind maps condense complex books into manageable summaries. Begin with the central book title and branch out to capture key plot points, character developments, and important quotes. These visual summaries provide a quick overview, helping you grasp the essence of a book in a fraction of the time.

Whether you're a student tackling a challenging novel or an avid reader pressed for time, mind maps offer an efficient way to comprehend and retain key information from literary works, offering benefits akin to the convenience of ' pay for essay ' services in the academic world.

Project Management

Streamlining project planning with cute creative mind map ideas adds a delightful and engaging dimension to the otherwise conventional project management process. Rather than relying solely on text and tables, you infuse your project with a burst of visual appeal and playfulness.

Consider using adorable icons, colorful illustrations, or charming doodles to represent tasks and milestones. These whimsical elements not only make your mind map visually appealing but also serve as memorable markers, ensuring that everyone involved in the project stays engaged and informed.

Travel Planning

Now, prepare for unforgettable adventures by creating mind maps for traveling. Begin by centering your map on your destination, which is one of the main branches of your travel mind map. Branch out to cover essential details like accommodation, activities, and budget, nurturing the growth of new ideas for your trip. Use sub-branches to explore local cuisine, must-see attractions, and transportation options, creating a comprehensive travel plan. With a well-structured map, you'll map out the perfect itinerary and ensure nothing is left to chance, making your journey even more exciting.

5 Useful Mind Mapping Tools

Let's explore the world of mind mapping with these top-notch tools, each offering unique features and capabilities. Whether you're brainstorming ideas, planning projects, or even using an essay writing app , these tools can revolutionize your productivity and organization.

MindMeister

• MindMeister is a popular online mind mapping tool that allows you to create, edit, and collaborate on mind maps in real time. It offers a user-friendly interface, various templates, and integrations with other productivity apps like Google Drive and Dropbox.
• XMind is a versatile and feature-rich mind mapping software that offers both a free and paid version. It provides a wide range of customization options, including themes, styles, and layouts, making it suitable for various mind mapping needs.
• Coggle is a straightforward online mind mapping tool known for its simplicity and ease of use. It's great for brainstorming sessions and collaborative mind mapping. Coggle also allows real-time collaboration, making it perfect for group projects.
• Developed by Tony Buzan, the pioneer of mind mapping software programs, iMindMap offers a comprehensive platform for creating visually appealing mind maps. It provides various features like 3D mind mapping, brainstorming mode, and integration with other applications.
• FreeMind is an open-source mind mapping software that's simple and lightweight. It's an excellent choice if you prefer a desktop application and want to create mind maps without any distractions. FreeMind is especially useful for creating straightforward mind maps quickly.

To Wrap Things Up

To wrap things up, employing mind map ideas can transform the way students approach their studies. By harnessing their versatility, students can conquer complex subjects, improve memory retention, and elevate their creative thinking. So, don't hesitate to dive into the world of mind mapping—it's a game-changer for your education and beyond.

Feeling Like Your Assignments Need a Creative Spark?

Our expert writers are here to craft your next mind map-infused assignment with precision and creativity!

Annie Lambert

specializes in creating authoritative content on marketing, business, and finance, with a versatile ability to handle any essay type and dissertations. With a Master’s degree in Business Administration and a passion for social issues, her writing not only educates but also inspires action. On EssayPro blog, Annie delivers detailed guides and thought-provoking discussions on pressing economic and social topics. When not writing, she’s a guest speaker at various business seminars.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

Related Articles

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Mind Map Templates

33 free mind map templates & examples (word,powerpoint,psd).

A mind map is a tool used to explore an idea or concept and its related topics. Mind map diagrams visually present information in a non-linear way, and there is no often no specified structure to follow when mind mapping.

The aim of a mind map template is to develop a deeper understanding of a central concept and generate related information from one idea. Mind maps are typically used for brainstorming and are a popular method with students when exploring concepts.

Table of Contents

• 1 Mind Map Templates
• 2.1 Differences between a Mind Map Template and a Concept Map Template
• 3 Mind Map Examples
• 4.1 Mind Mapping for Students
• 4.2 Brainstorming
• 4.3 Mind Mapping for Business
• 4.4 Improve Collaboration Across Teams
• 5 Free Mind Map Samples
• 6.1 Spider Map Template
• 6.2 Bubble Map Template
• 6.3 Brace Map Template
• 6.4 Flow Map Template
• 6.5 Multi-Flow Map Template
• 7.1 Steps to Create a Mind Map
• 8 Benefits of a Mind Map Template

We provide a range of free mind map templates for you to download and customize for your mind mapping sessions and brainstorming process.

What is a Mind Map?

Mind maps are diagrams used in a range of industries to help people brainstorm and organize their ideas. A mind map template can be an incredibly useful resource regardless of how complex the initial concept is.

Many people choose to create a mind map template to explore ideas at a deeper level and to help them form connections between a specific concept and its related ideas. Used correctly, mind maps can extend the thought process and inspire creativity, allowing you to discover new ideas as a result.

Differences between a Mind Map Template and a Concept Map Template

• Focus on one central topic
• Work better for quick note-taking and brainstorming

Concept Maps:

• Deal with a variety of different concepts at once
• Visualize concepts in a more thorough and detailed way

While both diagrams have useful features, mind map templates are a great tool for focused, intense study of a central topic.

For example, you may use a mind map template to study a particular aspect of a novel . If you are studying a novel in class, then you can create a mind map template for each of the main characters. The topics that would stem from each character could be their intentions, their appearance, key quotes, and their main relationships in the story.

Mind Map Examples

How to Use Mind Maps

Mind mapping for students.

Mind maps are commonly used by students for studying or planning an essay. A mind map is highly customizable, meaning you are not restricted to a specific structure when brainstorming ideas. With this in mind, students at any level can use mind maps as part of their study routine.

A mind map is:

• Useful for all subjects
• Customizable
• A form of note-taking
• Great for brainstorming

When studying for an exam, you can edit a mind map template to organize information using branches that link to different topics. Mind mapping can be as detailed or as simplistic as you like, depending on what you are studying.

Brainstorming

You can easily add ideas as they come to you with a mind map template. For example, if you are copying your notes into a mind map template, perhaps a new idea arises. You can simply add this to the mind map template without feeling like it ruins the overall presentation of your ideas.

The visual layout of mind maps can help you to easily remember information. If you choose one section for a specific topic related to your main concept, then you can use the positioning of the topic to help you recall information.

It is also useful to use a specific color for different branches for this reason. Mind mapping is a staple study tool because of how the visual layout improves the recall of information.

Mind Mapping for Business

Mind maps can be used in business, either as part of a brainstorming process or as a part of a presentation during a team meeting .

Regardless of what your business is, you can use a mind map template to:

• Help improve your marketing strategy
• Brainstorm new ideas for the company
• Focus on strategic planning
• Train staff members on a specific process

Improve Collaboration Across Teams

The brainstorming aspect of mind map diagrams is favored by business people, as it can easily be used as part of a collaboration with a team. A mind map template is therefore useful when project planning or improving marketing strategy.

Brainstorming as a team can help to:

• Increase creative ideas
• Improve overall marketing strategy
• Improve current features of the business
• Allow a range of employees to have their say during a team discussion

Mind map templates can also be used as part of a formal presentation to help easily display ideas to colleagues, a team, or clients. Mind maps can also be used in online meetings.

Free Mind Map Samples

Which Mind Map Template Should You Use?

There are several types of mind maps for you to use, depending on the topic you are researching. These include:

• Multi-Flow Map

Whilst the key features remain the same for each template, mind maps are versatile tools that you can use for a range of purposes.

Spider Map Template

Possibly the most common form of mind map, the spider map template begins with the main concept in the middle of the page, with related ideas connected by branches, like a spider web. Spider map templates are great for brainstorming ideas related to a particular concept.

Benefits of a Spider Map Template

• The branches structure is clear and useful for studying
• Customizable with color and images

Spider mind maps give a simplified overview of a central concept, making them a go-to choice for students and researchers.

Bubble Map Template

Bubble maps will often use one word as the central concept, with related adjectives branching out from this. For example, ‘sun’ would be the central concept, with ‘yellow’ and ‘hot’ as words in the outer circles.

The bubble mind map template structure includes space for the central idea in the middle circle, with outer circles arranged for the related adjectives. Bubble maps are therefore particularly useful when writing an essay or planning a story, as they take one simple concept and allow you to expand this creatively into more specific or nuanced ideas. You can also add images to your bubble mind map template to customize the layout.

Benefits of a Bubble Map Template

• Useful for essay and story planning
• Helps to inspire creativity
• Images can be used to add reference points

Brace Map Template

A brace map template is used for developing a deeper understanding of a specific concept, giving you a closer insight into one central concept. A brace map template allows you to understand how something works, particularly physical objects.

The structure of a brace map is still simple, however. You simply write the name of the object on the left-hand side of the page and draw the brace next to this, which you can adjust based on its related parts. Images are also useful to add to a brace map template, as they provide reminders of concepts related to the main idea.

Benefits of a Brace Map Template

• Can expand knowledge of a specific concept
• Simple structure
• Useful for science and math-based topics

Flow Map Template

Flow maps are used present ideas in a coherent sequence. They are designed in a flowchart style, with one concept leading to the next using arrows. They can be displayed horizontally or vertically.

Aside from being a useful study tool, flow maps work great as part of a presentation to highlight a sequence clearly. This can be applicable to businesses when displaying a proposed strategy, or for students who are explaining a timeline of events.

Benefits of a Flow Map Template

• Helps to sequence ideas
• Works well for presentations

Multi-Flow Map Template

Multi-flow diagrams work best for establishing cause-and-effect relationships between a central concept and its related topics.

Multi-flow map templates are designed with the main concept in the middle, similar to most mind map formats. However, a multi-flow map will typically have the causes of this concept branching out from the left-hand side, and the effects of this concept branching out to the right-hand side.

The arrows in the mind map template will flow from left to right to represent a journey from cause to effect. This is a particularly useful type of mind map when researching historical events, novels, or scientific concepts.

Benefits of a Multi-Flow Map Template

• Establishes cause-and-effect relationships
• Useful for a range of topics, including history and science-based concepts

How to Create a Mind Map Template

A real benefit to using a mind map is that they are simple and free to create. Using a mind map template makes this process even easier, and allows you to customize the mind map to your liking.

You may wish to create mind map diagrams on a computer using Google Slides or a word processor. While this may be more time-consuming, the features of online tools are particularly good for a presentation with an audience.

You can follow the same steps for designing your mind map template, whether on paper or online.

Steps to Create a Mind Map

• Choose your main concept This is the reason for creating your mind map. Perhaps you have to study a specific topic for a test or you have an important essay to write. Decide on your main concept to form the basis of your mind map.Most mind map templates will be designed horizontally to allow for more space, so turn your page sideways. You can then write the main idea in the middle of your mind map. This is usually inside a circle, but you can choose a different shape if you prefer. If you have chosen a different type of mind map than a spider map, then lay the main idea out accordingly.
• brainstorm related Information Depending on your chosen style of mind map, the way that you map out ideas will differ. However, this is a crucial part of mind map creation, so be sure to choose your related ideas appropriately. If you are studying for a test, you can use past exam papers or lecture notes to help you decide which ideas to prioritize within your mind map template.In a spider map, the related ideas will branch out from the main idea. You should draw a line to link the related idea to the central idea. You can use a different color to represent different categories, perhaps writing the title of that particular section, or the whole section, in one color.
• Add information to each section of the mind map template As you explore concepts further, you can add additional branches to your mind map. Try to add detail whilst keeping your notes brief.You do not need to write in full sentences, as this may take up too much space. Keep it simple but prioritize key concepts that you think are relevant to remember or present to your audience.
• Use color, images, and curved lines Your mind map should be visually appealing, whether it is for studying, or for presenting to an audience. A mind map template is customizable, so you can add images and colors to help display your ideas in an engaging and memorable way.The lines that connect each section, often known as ‘branches,’ should be curved to help give you more space to write. Curved lines also allow for flexibility if you want to add more ideas to your mind map.If you’re a creative person, having a colorful mind map design can make each mind-mapping session a fun process. When I’ve suggested mind mapping to students, they often end up enjoying the process of mapping out their thinking because of the creative aspect of using different colored branches for their mind map diagrams.

Benefits of a Mind Map Template

You can download a free mind map template to begin mapping out your thinking. Mind map templates allow you to explore ideas about a concept and structure your thinking in a clear way.

Seeing a mind map template as a blank canvas can seem daunting, but the final product will result in an understanding of the bigger picture after a creative brainstorming process. You can print and edit a free mind map template to help with your study or research process.

Happy mind mapping!

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15 free mind map tools for writers

A few days ago I wrote about how to use the free online app Miro to plot out a story .

That’s all well and good if you already have an idea for a plot, and now just need to fine-tune it, maybe move some pieces around, add some clues and red herrings, that kind of thing.

But it’s not particularly useful when you don’t have much of a plot to start with.

That’s where mind-mapping tools can help.

In a lucky coincidence, I happen to be stuck in the early phase of my next novel. Turns out, I have to throw out the plot that I’ve got and start over with a new one, because the other one just wasn’t working. It was too similar to my last plot, and there was no way to connect it to my protagonist’s internal character arc in a way that wouldn’t feel clumsy and forced.  So I need to do some brainstorming.

I could use Miro again. It has a mind map function, of a kind. Or I could use pen and paper or move sticky notes around on a wall or floor or draw mind maps in the steam on the mirror after I shower. But who showers these days, amirite?

Anyway, why do something in a simple, familiar, guaranteed-to-work way when I can use this opportunity to test out new tools? And yes, procrastinate. I admit it.

There are a lot of mind mapping tools out there. Some cost a lot of money. I ruled those out right away.

I’m looking for a tool that’s easy to use, has a basic free plan that offers all the features I want, and I don’t want to have to download and install anything. In other words, I want my mind map in the cloud.

If you are the kind of person who doesn’t want to put their stuff in the cloud, that’s fine. And there are a lot of apps that you can download and run locally, including Diagrams.net , Scapple , MindNode , and MindMaster .

But I want my mind maps accessible from any of my devices, and I don’t care if one of their employees leaks my list of possible murder methods. If I become a big-name author who’s obsessed with preventing leaks, then maybe I’ll think about something with better security. But frankly, unless I’m JK Rowling, nobody is going to care about my process. Plus, I’m probably going to blog about it all, anyway.

So I didn’t test any of the downloadable ones. No point in spending a lot of time learning the interface if I’m never going to use it.

Another feature I want is to be able to import and export mind maps in case I change my mind about what platform I use. The most common format is FreeMind, and I want the exports to be free. Finally, I also want it to be pretty.

So here’s a summary of what I’ve got, with my personal, subjective opinions on whether it’s pretty and easy to use. Scroll down for a full description and sample mind maps for each one.

• Ayoa — Free for up to five mind maps then $10 a month. Pretty. Easy to use. No FreeMind exports.
• Bubbl — Free for up to three mind maps then $5 a month. Ugly. Easy. No FreeMind exports.
• Canva — Unlimited free mind maps, upgrade gives you more storage for $10 a month. Pretty. Hard to use. No FreeMind exports.
• ClickUp — Unlimited free mind maps, upgrade gives you unlimited storage for $5 a month. Ugly. Hard. No FreeMind exports.
• Cloud MindMap — Unlimited free maps, ad supported. Ugly. Easy to use. No FreeMind exports. Can install as Google Drive app. Ad-supported version and only slightly improved version of the free MindMaps app .
• Coggle — Free for up to three private mind maps or unlimited public maps, then $5 a month. Ugly. Easy to use. Free FreeMind exports.
• GitMind — Unlimited free mind maps, upgrade gives you unlimited exports for $4 a month. Pretty. Easy. No FreeMind exports.
• Google Drawings — Unlimited free mind maps, add 100 GB storage for $2 a month. Ugly. Hard to use. No FreeMind exports.
• Lucidchart — Free for up to three mind maps then $8 a month. Ugly. Hard to use. No FreeMind exports.
• Milanote — First 100 notes, images, or links are free, then $10 a month. Ugly. Hard to use. No FreeMind exports.
• Mind Map Maker — Unlimited free maps, ad supported. Ugly. Easy to use. No FreeMind exports. Can install as Google Drive app.  Another ad-supported version of the free MindMaps app , this one with a few more improvements.
• MindMeister  — Free for up to three mind maps then $5 a month. Pretty. Easy to use. FreeMind exports cost money. Can install as Google Drive app.
• MindMup — Unlimited free mind maps, upgrade gives you more storage for $3 a month — or completely free with Google Drive integration. Ugly. Easy. Has free FreeMind exports.
• Mindomo  — Free for up to three mind maps then $5 a month. Pretty. Easy to use. FreeMind exports cost money. Can install as Google Drive app.
• Stormboard — Free for up to five mind maps then $10 a month. Ugly. Hard. No FreeMind exports.

If you don’t care about FreeMind exports, Ayoa and Coggle are both pretty and easy to use, with Ayoa giving you five free maps instead of three, but Coggle’s premium plan costs just $5 a month, half that of Ayoa.

MindMeister and Mindomo are both pretty and easy to use and have FreeMind exports if you fork over some dough, and both have three free mind maps and a $5 a month paid plan.

But MindMup turned out to be my favorite. It’s uglier, but its easy to use, and when I installed it as a Google App I got unlimited free mind maps plus super easy integration with all my other Google Drive stuff. And I have a lot of stuff in Google Drive — I use Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Gmail, Google Calendar, probably other Google services I’m forgetting about, and I already pay extra for storage

If you’re a big Google platform user like me, you can go to your Google Drive home page, click on the gear icon at the top right, click on “Settings,” then “Manage Apps,” then “Connect more apps” then type “mind map” to get a list of apps that you install directly into Google Drive. Once installed, you can create a new mind map by going to your Google Drive home screen, clicking the “+ New” at the top left, hovering over the “more” on the menu, and selecting your mind map app. Once you create a new mind map, the file will appear in your Google Drive where you can organize it the way you would any other Google Drive file.

So let’s get started.

Brainstorming a crime with Ayoa

Ayoa is an online tool that’s free for up to five boards and $10 a month for the premium version for unlimited boards. So it meets my reasonable pricing criteria. Downsides include the fact that full integration with Google Drive, so that you can save your mind maps there, costs money. It also doesn’t support importing FreeMind or other open mind map standards.

I’m going to go through the steps of creating a mind map in detail with Ayoa, because it’s the first one that I’m using. Other platforms, for the most part, have a similar approach.

My books are a blend of sci-fi, fantasy, and mystery. The setting is a medieval world — but it’s virtual reality. The protagonist kind of has a magic power. And he solves crimes.

So let’s see if I can use an Ayoa mind map to come up with some ideas for a crime that my protagonist can solve.

First, you go to the free Aoya signup page .

I signed up for Ayoa using Google, so it only took a couple of clicks and I didn’t have to fill anything in. But you can also sign in with Facebook or Apple, or create a standalone account from scratch.

Then you can choose between creating white boards, task boards, or mind maps. I want the mind map.

There’s a few templates to choose from, but none of the pre-made ones seemed really appropriate so I went with “Create blank speed map.” Ayoa has a little guide that takes you through the process, in a pretty cute and easy way. Bonus points for Ayoa.

The nice thing about this tool is that as you add branches, it automatically rearranges everything to fit.

I was able to come up with five crimes off the top of my head — murder, rape, theft, blackmail and embezzlement.

Once you sign in — I signed up with Google — you have a choice of building whiteboards, mind maps, and task boards. Good to have other options, in case you decide you like Ayoa and want to use its whiteboards for story planning or if you plan to work with collaborators and want to create task boards.

I opted for the mind map.

Ayoa gives you a bunch of different templates to start with. I started with a blank speed map, but if I decide to stick with this app, I’ll probably check out some of the other options in the future, including the book review template.

The first time you create a new mindmap, Aoya guides you through the process, showing you how to add nodes and branches.

A node is any of the boxes or circles in a mind map. Branches and sub-branches are things that come off of it. A node might have a parent node that it’s connected to, a child node that connects to it, and sibling nodes which are other nodes connected to the same parent branch. You can hover over a node and click the green plus button that appears, or click on a node and hit enter to create a sibling node or a tab to create a child node.

This is the basic design principle that all the mind maps I’ve tested this week use. In fact, after I did a couple of these, I started skipping the guided tutorials because all the interfaces are basically the same.

Hitting “enter” to create a new sibling node and “tab” for a child node is very simple and intuitive and lets you build a mind map very quickly without thinking too much about the layout and design. Many of the apps on this list using the same system. Those that do make you click on a button to add a new node, or force you to drag a node icon from a menu bar. Both are annoying. If you’re a vendor reading this — please fix your interface so it’s consistent with industry standards.

Above, you can see my first mind map. I started out with just a few basic crimes — murder, blackmail, theft, rape, and embezzlement.

Yeah, that’s pretty weak. Well, that’s what Google is for.

After Googling around for different types of crimes, I added arson, counterfeiting, environmental crimes, data theft, bribery, and a few others. After a while, it was getting counterproductive. Did I really want my hero investigating violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act? Actually… maybe… in a later book… I might be able to turn that into something!

Now, the next step is to come up with examples of that crime that would work in my universe. For example, for murder, someone can be shot with an arrow, or stabbed, or trampled by a horse, or pushed off a roof. You can insert images and emojis, but you can’t add file attachments like Google Docs or Word files.

If the map gets too big to fit on your screen, use the scroll wheel to zoom in and out, or drag the map around.

If I were to use this for real to plan my book, I would keep going with detailed options for more of these. Probably not all of them — just whatever strikes my fancy — and keep going only until something rings a bell with me. Once I worked my way all the way out to the end of the mind map, I’d pick my favorite options and then add more branches, about how it would work out with different antagonists and different motives. For example, some of my potential antagonists might be too squeamish to stab someone in the back, or their motive might be strong enough for assault but not for murder.

You can change the mind map’s style at any time. there’s a “display options” button at the top left that lets you switch to dark mode, change the board type, change the style and colors of the nodes and arrows, and change the board’s background color.

Brainstorming crimes with Bubbl

In  Bubbl , the first three private boards are free, and after that it’s $5 per month. You can sign up by registering with the site directly, or with your Google or Facebook accounts. You can’t import any files, including FreeMind, and you can only save as images or text, no FreeMind exports. If you want to share your maps with others, you have to upgrade.

On the plus side, it’s a very simple app and easy to use and you can attach images — but if you want to attach more than one image per mind map, you’ll need to upgrade.

Overall, it’s simple to use but all the limitations mean it’s not one of my top choices for mind mapping platforms.

I also don’t like the way it looks.

Brainstorming things to steal with Canva

If you don’t know about Canva yet, you’re in for a treat. This is a fantastic tool to make social media banners, short story covers and book cover mockups. The book covers it comes up with aren’t good enough to sell, unless you’ve got maybe a specialized technical book, but they’re good enough to give you some personal inspiration, or for a temporary work-in-progress cover. And Canva is great for creating covers to illustrate short stories or blog posts.

And best of all, the free plan has unlimited documents. The only limit is the 5GB of cloud storage they give you. The paid plan, at $10 a month, gives you 100GB of storage. Canva also has downloadable apps for the PC, Mac, Android and iOS.

Canva also has mind maps .

The thing is, though, Canva is design software. It’s not actually mind mapping software. So the mind map templates it offers are more pretty than functional. So, for example, you can’t just click and add a tree branch to your mind map. You have to cut and paste an existing design element and drag it into the place you want it. It’s a little like using Miro for mind mapping, except that the design features are even more generic and less specific to flow charts. Plus, it doesn’t support the FreeMind open mind map standard.

I use Canva a lot for other types of designs, but I’m going to pass on using it for mind mapping.

Above, you can see a simple mind map of potential items to steal. Oh yeah, I’ve decided on theft as the crime. To create this mind map, I picked one of the mind map templates that Canva had and replaced their text with my own. If I want to add more items, I’d have to rearrange the whole mind map. I can click on each of the circles and move it around, or make it bigger or smaller, or change its color, and then I’d have to move all the other circles, and move all the lines, and it would be a big mess.

So Canva is great if you like the designs they offer and have the same number of items as their design has, but if you want a mind map that makes it easy to add new items and that readjusts itself automatically, Canva is not your bae.

Brainstorming crimes with ClickUp

ClickUp offers unlimited boards in the free plan, but a 100MB storage limit. For unlimited storage, it’s 5MB per month. But while ClickUp has a mind map tool that’s nice and interactive, the platform itself is more of a project management system with a lot of organizational features designed for corporate teams.

So while the pricing is good, and ClickUp is a good option if you plan to work on big projects with a lot of collaborators, it might be overkill for an individual writer.

The ClickUp mind map has only the minimum features — the sub-branches are easy to add and to change the text on but not to move around. Any node can be expanded to a full detail page or converted to a task for a team member to do. But it’s not particularly pretty. There’s no “undo” if you make a mistake. And you can only go two levels out. So, overall, not particularly practical for a good mind map. Plus, it doesn’t support the FreeMind open mind map standard.

Brainstorming motives with Cloud MindMap

I found Cloud MindMap in the Google Drive app store. I don’t even know if you can install it directly. The good thing about it is that it’s completely free. You just have to be tolerant of the ads on the side and bottom of the screen. It’s the ad-supported version of the free MindMaps app ., with some very basic improvements such as the Google Drive integration.

It’s easy to use, though extremely ugly. You can export as as image, and change the colors of the nodes and lines and do some basic text formatting, but not much else.

To create a new child node either click on an existing node and hit “tab” or mouse over an existing node, click on the red circle that appears and drag it over to where you want the new node to be. There doesn’t seem to be an easy way to create a sibling node.

At one point, I seem to have accidentally switched over into moving-things-around-but-no-typing mode. I saved the mind map to my Google Drive, closed it, opened it again, and I could edit the text on the nodes once more. This could just be a bug, since I couldn’t find any indication that it was a special mode. But given how little functionality a mind map app actually needs, it shouldn’t have a bug that a user would encounter after just a minute of use.

There are no templates, no themes, no design options to speak of.

Brainstorming motives with Coggle

With  Coggle , the first three private boards are free, and after that it’s $5 per month. But you can have an unlimited number of public boards. So this is an option if you don’t really care if people find and see your mind mapping boards. Plus, it supports the FreeMind open mind map standard in case you want to bring in mind maps from MindMup or other platforms.

Shift-enter creates a new sibling node, tab creates a new child node, shift-tab moves you to the parent node. You can drag nodes or entire branches around. And you can attach images, hyperlinks, or icons to each node. You can also zoom in and out and move the map around on your screen. It’s a very simple, sleek interface. If you’re looking for a mind map tool that makes it very easy to create mind maps, without a lot of bells and whistles, check this out.

Coggle makes it pretty quick and easy to create mind maps, but there’s no choice of templates or color themes. I’ve looked through their gallery of mind maps, and they all look generally the same, though some of them play around with different node arrangements, icons, or embedded images.

You can export as a PDF, image, Visio flowchart, or a FreeMind mind map so you can move the whole mind map to another platform. You can also drag FreeMind or text files onto the diagram to import them. That was actually pretty cool — I dragged a text file with a list of phrases on it and it automatically created a branch full of nodes, a new node for each line of text.

It also keeps a history so you can easily go back to previous versions of the map. It seems to save each change as a new version.

Brainstorming crimes with GitMind

GitMind offers unlimited mind maps on the free plan, but you need to upgrade, at $4 a month, to export more than once.

You can sign in with Twitter, Google, Facebook or register with the site directly.

The interface is simple and has all the basic functions mind map functions, including image attachments.

GitMind doesn’t support FreeMind imports. You can export as an image, PDF, text or GitMind export file. Each export costs two points, and you get two points when you start. To earn more free points, you can share GitMind on social media.

At first, due to the limitations and the limited templates, I didn’t think I was going to be using this one.

But I actually came back to GitMind for my next brainstorming task, creating a story outline. One thing I like is that you can click to hide all the subbranches, and click to expand them all again.

It’s also relatively easy to move things around. To take a node and all its children and attach them to another node, you just click on it and drag it over.

There are some minor annoyances, like not being able to resize the text boxes and automatically reflow the text. I had to do hard line breaks inside the text boxes to keep the text box from being a super-wide one-line box.

Brainstorming motives with  Google Drawings

Unlimited number of documents, integrates with all your other Google Docs. Has a feature where you can add comments to your text boxes. And once you make a mind map you like, you can save it as a template and use it over and over again.

However, while Google Drive has mobile apps for both Android and iOS that let you view the drawings, you can’t edit the drawings unless you open it in your smartphone’s web browser as a desktop site. Which is really difficult to use on a smartphone screen. Plus, it doesn’t support the FreeMind open mind map standard. And Google Drawings is a general design app, and not a particularly good one at that, so it’s missing the mind map functionality of being able to easily create child nodes and drag entire branches around.

I didn’t see any pre-made mind map templates in the Google template gallery, and couldn’t find many online, either. The drawing below was based on a template from Ditch That Textbook.

There are some pluses. First, it’s completely free. Second, if you’re already using Google Drive, it’s fully integrated with everything you’ve got. So, for example, if you have a spreadsheet where you track your writing projects, you can easily embed live links to the Google Drawing. You can also embed the drawing into a Google Doc word processing document, or into a slide deck, and sharing is simple.

I’m not going to be using it for mind maps. MindMup offers the same degree of Google Drive integration, with a better user interface.

Brainstorming a motive with Lucidchart

In addition to having a crime, I’ll need a motive. Time for another mind map. This time, I’ll use Lucidchart . The first three boards are free, and after that it’s $8 per month. But Lucidchart is a general-purpose charting app, so there might be a lot of features there that get in the way. Plus, it doesn’t support the FreeMind open mind map standard. And you can export as an image or as a Visio file, but not as a FreeMind file.

There are a lot of templates here, including more than 20 mind mapping templates, but only three of the mind maps are free. For the rest, you have to upgrade.

Lucidchart is primarily a chart creation tool. The kind of charts you might put in a presentation or a corporate report. So the nodes don’t resize automatically. Hitting enter or tab doesn’t create new nodes like in the dedicated mind mapping apps. There’s a lot of options for shapes and arrow types, so if you wanted to you can customize the look of your chart quite a bit. But the actual mind mapping isn’t particularly easy.

I’m not going to keep going with Lucidchart. All the design features are getting in the way for me, as is the lack of FreeMind imports or exports.

Brainstorming motives with  Milanote

In  Milanote , the first 100 notes, images or links are free, and after that it’s $10 per month.  Has Google and Apple sign-on options.

When you start out, it asks you what you do — I said writer — and then it takes you through to your first mind map in a very simple guided tutorial. Just a couple of clicks and I was there, plus in addition to mind maps it gave me a bunch of other writer-specific templates, including novel plan, character profile, story outline, and world building. Nice!

But, it doesn’t support the FreeMind open mind map standard.

And the interface isn’t as user-friendly as some of the other platforms. For example, to create a new node, you have to click on a blank area of the canvas — to deselect whatever node you were in before — then drag a “note” from the top left corner of the interface to where you want it. Then click on the node, and drag the little arrow icon in its top right corner to the parent node to create a line. Then click on the node to change its color using the icon bar at left, and click on the line to change its color, unless you want them to be the black and white defaults. Then type your text. Hitting “enter” or “tab” just adds lines and tabs inside the note — it doesn’t create new child or sibling nodes. And you can drag around a node — and all attached nodes follow — but the rest of the map doesn’t rearrange itself to move other nodes out of the way. So you can put nodes on top of nodes and make a mess.

You can add images, comments, hyperlinks, to-do lists or attachments, group cards into columns, or embed other boards inside your main board. You can also publish it to the Web, or embed it into a blog post or website.

You can export as a PDF, image, Word document, HTML, or plain text, but not in the FreeMind format that lets you easily move the mind map to other platforms.

It’s pretty easy to use, and the interface is nice and sleek, but it doesn’t make it as easy to add nodes as other platforms do. Also, you can’t click on the background to drag it around — you have to use the scroll bars at the bottom and on the right.

On the plus side, it does have other cool templates. Here’s one for a short story plot, that I used to outline my next short story.

I do like some of the functionality that Milanote has, and it can look really pretty. Am I willing to spend $10 a month on it? No, I don’t think so.

Brainstorming motives with Mind Map Maker

Mind Map Maker seems to be a clone of  Cloud MindMap , but with a couple more features. I also found it in the Google Drive app store. And like Cloud MindMap, it’s completely free and ad supported.

It has a website, but the home page looks like something created a decade ago as a hobby project.

It’s easy to use, though extremely ugly. But it has more features than Cloud MindMap. There are some additional formatting options, like borders around the nodes, and you can add images and attachments. The color picker is also much better, and there are more ways to save files.

To create a new child node either click on an existing node and hit “tab” or mouse over an existing node, click on the red circle that appears and drag it over to where you want the new node to be. Hitting “enter” twice adds a sibling node. You can drag branches around, but you can’t move a node from one branch to another.

When you create a new node, it doesn’t place it intelligently, and you can easily wind up with new nodes on top of each other that you then have to move around to see.

Again, there are no templates, no themes, no design options to speak of. I installed this app via Google Drive.

I actually decided to use this app — ads and all — as an embed in my novel writing database. Another feature of this app that seems to be unique is that the app makers offer unlimited free storage, if you don’t mind that it can be accessed by anyone with the URL. For example, here’s a quick story plot mind map .

Feel free to play around with it. If you do, and save it, it will create a new URL that only you will know — unless you share it, like I just did.

It doesn’t look like the images are saved in the free public save option, but they do get saved when I save it to my Google Drive account. I really like this app. It’s free. You quickly learn to ignore the ads. You can save locally, or to Google Drive. You can’t export as a FreeMind file or text file, and for future versions I’d like to see the creators add those options. Also, it’s hard to move a branch from one parent node to another. Right now, I just copy the whole branch and paste it where I want it, then delete the old one. It would be nice if they offered a feature where if you drag a branch on top of a new node it would disconnect from the old one and attach to the new one automatically. But those are pretty mild quibbles.

Brainstorming an antagonist with MindMeister 

So, I need a bad guy. Time for another mind map. This time, I’ll use MindMeister . The first three boards are free, and after that you have to upgrade to a premium plan, which is $5 per month.

The free version supports imports from the FreeMind open mind map standard in case you want to bring in mind maps from MindMup or other platforms. I tried it out and the import function works well.

It also lets you log in with Google and with Facebook single sign on. I logged in with Google.

You can add emojis, images and videos to each node, and attach longer notes, comments, tasks, and file attachments. The attachments can be files from your computer, or from Dropbox, Google Drive, or Evernote. You can drag nodes and branches around, change shapes and colors, font sizes.

If you don’t like the light blue theme, you can switch anytime to one of more than a dozen other color themes, or you can customize your own shapes and colors.

It saves previous versions that you can revert to. And, if you’re working in a team, you can create presentations from your mind maps, basically videos that show you building the mind map. It’s kind of cool, and if you worked for a corporation and you had a bunch of people working together creating mind map it shows who added what.

You can save your mind map to your computer or Google Drive as outline or as a MindMeister file. If you upgrade, you can also save as an image or PDF,  as a FreeMind file, as a MindManager file, or as an XMind file. The FreeMind export is particularly useful if you want to move your mind map to another mind mapping platform, but you have to pay to be able to do that.

It’s easy to use, has all the functionality I would need in a mind map tool. But the lack of FreeMind exports in the free version, and the limit to just three mind maps in the free plan makes it less appealing than some of the other on this list.

On the plus side, you can install it as a Google Drive app.

Brainstorming crimes with MindMup

MindMup has unlimited boards, as long as each one is under 100KB in size. For $3 a month, get boards of up to 100MB in size each, plus collaboration features and revision histories. Another difference is the free option only keeps your maps for six months, and the paid version keeps them indefinitely. But you can save your maps to Google Drive to avoid that limitation.

After playing around with this, I strongly recommend that if you plan to use the free version, start right out with the Google Drive option. I was literally not able to figure out how to save and reopen mind maps using the free option — it kept telling me to activate the premium account first. Which I didn’t want to do.

So, my recommendation is to follow this tutorial for setting up MindMup with Google Drive . It’s pretty quick and easy, and then basically it looks and feels like MindMap is just another Google app. Except you can’t open it  with the Google Drive app on your mobile device, not even to look at it. But. BUT. If you open Google Drive in your mobile browser, then the interface is fully functional! And we’re in business!

If you’re the only one working on a file, I also recommend turning on AutoSave in the File menu.

Now, to the interface. Adding, deleting and moving branches around is pretty easy. There’re buttons in the top menu bar for adding child branches or sibling branches, or you can double-click on a node and then hit “enter” to create a sibling branch. You can drag branches around, and all the child nodes come along for the ride.

You can also add images, notes, emojis, and attachments of all kinds. I created a MindMup mind map of more than 5GB by attaching files and images and MindMup didn’t tell me that I was going over the file size limits.

You can change the image thumbnail by going to Edit > Node Icon/Picture and changing the dimensions. The edit menu also lets you change the font on your nodes.

There’s also one unique feature I haven’t seen in other mind mapping apps — you can show or hide different levels. So, for example, you can show just the first layer of nodes, or the first two layers, or all the layers, or anything in between. So if you’re using this as an outlining tool, or a timeline tool, you can add or hide layers of detail. I like this very, very much.

Overall, this is one of my favorite mind map tools. The basic version gives me everything I want — unlimited file sizes, unlimited number of boards, easy sharing via Google Drive. Plus, Google Drives has a built-in revision history feature, in case you want to go to an earlier version of the map. And if you’re worried about MindMup going out of business — say, because it does such a bad job managing the free and the premium accounts — you can export all your maps in the open FreeMind standard, which is the most commonly used standard, and supported by MindMeister, Mindomo, Miro, MindNode, and Coggle.

I do wish it had better graphics for the nodes, but there are several themes you can switch between on the fly, and you can customize your own theme.

Brainstorming motives with Mindomo 

In  Mindomo , the first three boards are free, and after that it’s $5 per month. It supports the FreeMind open mind map standard in case you want to bring in mind maps from MindMup or other platforms.

You can sign up with Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Office 365, or Apple. I opted for Google. And you can import from a bunch of different file formats, including FreeMind, the most popular open mind map format, as well as Mindomo saved files — in case you run into your limit and save old ones to your computer — MindManger, Mindmeister, XMind, Bubbl, SimpleMind, iThoughts, and more.

You can create a couple of different types of charts, not just mind maps but also timelines, Gantt charts, business plans, break-even analyses, company org charts — lots of different business-friendly options. I went with mind maps, of which there are 40 templates to pick from.

The interface is easy. Click on a node then hit enter to create a new sibling node or tab to create a child node. You can move things around by dragging and dropping.

You can also switch the color themes at any time or customize your theme.

You can add notes to any node as well as images, attachments, videos, hyperlinks, and audio recordings.

I like the sleek, clean look of the interface. It really lets you focus on creating the mind map.

You can export as a text file or a Mindomo file. If you want to export to Excel, or a PDF, or Word, PowerPoint, image file, or FreeMind you have to upgrade to a paid version. And exporting to your computer is free, but exporting to Dropbox, OneDrive or Google Drive requires an upgrade.

I like the interface very much, but the lack of FreeMind exports is worrisome. And forcing people to upgrade to get an image export is just nickel-and-diming, since you can just do a screen save.

You can install Mindomo as a Google Drive app but it doesn’t increase the number of free mind maps you can have.

Let’s move on to the next app.

Brainstorming motives with  Stormboard

In Stormboard , the first five boards are free, and after that it’s $10 per month. It doesn’t support the FreeMind open mind map standard.

To sign up, you can create a new account, or log in with Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn or Facebook. As usual, I opted for Google and then picked the free personal plan.

The first annoying thing is that they invent new words for things. What is a “Storm”? Is a folder? A board? I decided to do their tutorial, and created a new storm, and chose the “Mind Mapping” template.

Then I clicked the green “add” button at the bottom to create a new node and typed in “Motives.” Now to add child nodes… can’t figure out how. Tab doesn’t work. I create a new node using the “add” button, but it’s not connected to the first node.

This seems to be more of a sticky-notes-on-a-whiteboard app than an actual mind map. Even though the preview of the template showed arrows. I searched the entire interface for how to add arrows and couldn’t find it. I clicked everywhere on the sticky notes. I clicked on the little arrows that show up on the sides, but they didn’t do anything.

Okay, I Googled how to do lines. It seems that those arrows on the sides do do something — you can click and drag to another node to connect them.

So the way this works is you create a new node, then you drag one of the arrows to another node to connect it.

This is too much of a pain to use. Also, I can’t figure out how to export a board. And it looks like you an import a spreadsheet but not a FreeMind file.

MindMup isn’t the prettiest of all the apps I’ve tried over the past few days, but I do like the fact that there seem to be no limits on how many maps I can have.

And I wound up going back to GitMind to do my plot outline.

But overall, I’d have to say that there’s no perfect mind map app.

The thing is, a mind map requires very minimal functionality. And, if you integrate with Google Drive and use Google Drive to save the files, it doesn’t even have to take up any of the app developers’ storage space. I think this is a great opportunity to do a Dropbox-style freemium app, where all the basic features are free and the interface is attractive and easy to use.

So far, I haven’t found one.

Am I missing any apps? Email me at [email protected] .

Edited by Melody Friedenthal

Maria Korolov

MetaStellar editor and publisher Maria Korolov is a science fiction novelist , writing stories set in a future virtual world. And, during the day, she is an award-winning freelance technology journalist who covers artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and enterprise virtual reality . See her Amazon author page here and follow her on Twitter , Facebook , or LinkedIn , and check out her latest videos on the Maria Korolov YouTube channel . Email her at [email protected] . She is also the editor and publisher of Hypergrid Business , one of the top global sites covering virtual reality.

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Mind Maps For Essay Writing (Guide + Examples)

In this article we’ll show you how to use mind maps for essay writing. Mind maps can not only make this often dreadful task a whole lot easier, but also save you a huge amount of time. If you want to learn how this simple yet effective technique works, just follow the steps as outlined below. What Is a Mind Map? A mind map is a diagram that displays information visually. You can create mind maps using pen and paper, or you can use an online mind mapping tool such as MindMeister. Write the subject in the center of your paper / canvas. Draw branches that point away from the center. Each branch symbolizes one thought or idea related to the subject. Use meaningful keywords to write these ideas onto the branches. From each branch more ideas can branch off. Use colors, icons and images whenever possible. These function as mental triggers and can help spark new ideas in you, which is important during brainstorming sessions. Now that you know how to create a basic mind map, let’s go over how you can use mind maps for essay writing.

If you have the opportunity to choose the topic for your paper yourself, try to find one that’s been covered by other researchers before, but still gives you a chance to come up with new findings and conclusions. If you choose a topic that has already been explored in depth by a gazillion other researchers, you might be hard pressed to develop a unique perspective. Ideally, the topic should be something you are also personally interested in, or at least something you can relate to in some way. This will make the whole task of writing your essay a little less dreadful. The best way to find such a topic is a brainstorming session. Create a new mind map and simply write “My Essay” or “My Paper” in the center of the map. Now, start adding ideas around the center. These can be things your professor suggested, related subjects you discussed in class, or anything else relevant to get you started.

Next, note down your own areas of interest and see where they intersect with the former. Once you have a few good ideas for the subject of your paper, you can start weighing them against each other, noting down pros and cons. Eliminate topics until you’re left with only one. This will be the topic of your paper. In the example below, the only requirement that had been given was to write a paper about literature from the English Renaissance. You’ll see various famous writers of this time mentioned in the map, as well as various aspects of their work that could be examined in a paper, such as the symbolism, dramatic conflicts or themes. While working through both primary and secondary sources, it’s quite easy to get confused about the numerous arguments and counterarguments. Many students get frustrated and waste a lot of time just trying to figure out how to make all the different pieces of information fit together into a coherent text. What you need, therefore, is a system to collect and structure all this information in one central place, so you can easily review the materials while you write.

Create a new mind map for each source (book, article, essay) you read and take notes in this mind map while you work through the text. Alternatively, you can use one single map where you list all your sources and create child topics for every page/paragraph/quote you want to use in your paper. In the map below, you’ll see that – based on our initial brainstorming session – we chose ‘Love in Romeo and Juliet’ as the topic of our paper. For our research map, we wrote this topic in the center and created individual branches for each source we read. Next to the book title, we noted down the topics covered in the source, its central question as well as important passages that we thought we might want to quote in our essay. Use colors, arrows and icons to indicate connections between the arguments and quotes. Be sure to add the page numbers to the topics in your map so you can quickly go back to do some more fact checking if necessary. If you’re working with online sources you can also attach their links directly to the topics in your map.

As you go along, you can restructure the sources according to topics, which usually provides a better overview of the material you have available for each section of your paper. Here’s another example of a research map. This is the map we used to take notes while reading Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the subject of our paper. As you can see, we created branches for each of the text passages we wanted to analyze in the essay. Before you start with the actual writing, it’s very important that you first create an outline of your paper. This will help you create a coherent structure of your arguments, counterarguments, examples, quotes, and the sources you want to reference in each argument. You can quickly review this outline whenever you get sidetracked in your writing process, or when you’re unsure about how to continue. A mind map is a great format for such an outline because it provides you with a visual overview of your thesis statement and the entire text structure. Link the individual topics in your map with the respective research maps you’ve created. Add notes and deadlines to each step to make sure your writing stays on schedule. Export your finished outline as a Word document and use it as the basis for your paper. Using mind maps to plan and outline your essay will not only make the writing process a lot easier, it will also enable you to work through sources more efficiently and help you find information more quickly. Of course, you can use mind mapping for all types of writing assignments – from essays to short stories and from book reports to blog posts.

How to Use Mind Maps for an Effective Essay Writing

Edraw content team, do you want to learn more about using mind maps for an effective essay writing.

EdrawMind specializes in diagramming and visualizing. Learn from this article to know everything about How to Use Mind Maps for an Effective Essay Writing !

Being a student, writing an effective essay is a difficult task for you. But you can make it easy if you know how to use mind maps. Creating a mind map for essay writing helps you visualize the idea before writing it.

So, do you want to create mind maps? If yes, read this article explaining how to use mind maps for essays .

1. What Are Mind Maps for Essays

A mind map is a technique for centrally organizing thoughts on a particular concept. This visual thinking tool makes it easier to analyze, remember, understand, summarize, and develop new ideas by managing the data. Let us know by taking a mind map essay example . You want to write about your best friend, including his hobbies, details about his parents, and his likes and dislikes. Mind mapping would be the technique you will use to visualize the content going along in your 'best friend' essay.

Here are some benefits of using a mind map for writing an essay:

• The student can order the segments according to their subtopics.
• The student can refer to the mind map to see if they missed any important topics.
• If a student includes a mind map in an essay, it will help a reader to understand the issues quickly.
• The student makes sure they have all the necessary information before writing the essay by creating a mind map.
• Before an exam, a student can quickly review his mind maps for revision.

2. How to Prepare the Essay Using a Mind Map

Now that you know what a mind map is and how beneficial it is for essay writing. So, let's learn how to prepare an English essay mind map for essay writing .

2.1 Research the essay's topic

Finding a unique concept or a less popular subject is the first step in essay writing. If you choose to write about a topic for your essay that has already been discussed, it may be difficult for your research to take a real stand.

Instead, choosing an essay topic that interests you personally, or at least isn't too difficult for you to discuss, is advised. The process of writing an essay will be less tedious if you select a topic that is personal to you. To research the case of an article, do brainstorming.

To brainstorm, take a piece of paper and write down everything you know about a particular topic. Then, write your ideas by using keywords.

2.2 Planning the essay

One of the critical steps in writing an essay is research. Unfortunately, students often waste a lot of time simply attempting to put all the various pieces of information together. So, creating an essay planning mind map is essential so students can easily organize and collect their data.

Moreover, making notes in a mind map as you read each source (book, article, or essay) helps you retain the information. You could also use a single map where you list all your references and make branches for each page, paragraph, and quote you plan to use in your essay.

To organize the information from the brainstorming, decide on the main categories. Then, tie the additional information to those in the manner described below:

2.3 Outline and write the essay

The third step is to create an outline of your essay before you start writing it. It will help you to organize your arguments, counterarguments, examples, and sources in a logical order. A mind map makes it simple to review the outline and find the data one needs for their essay.

Whenever you find yourself getting off track while writing or when you are unsure of where to go next, you can quickly review this outline. Then, once outlining is done, start writing.

3. Mind Map Templates for Different Essays

There are different kinds of essays in academic writing. You can make a mind map as a student for various essays and then use these procedures to write the essay. Let's see 5 different types of essay outlines explained with mind maps. These essay mind map templates help you to write outstanding essays.

3.1 Argumentative Essay Mind Map

To write an argumentative essay, a student must be analytical. He must research a subject, gather information, come up with points, analyze the evidence gathered, and take a position.

So, use an argumentative essay mind map. By doing so, you will have different segments while outlining the essay's investigative and evaluative stages.

3.2 Comparative Essay Mind Map

Students write this type of essay when they need to highlight the similarities and differences between two or more subjects. Writing this type of essay is a fantastic way to show those topics or concepts frequently misunderstood by one another. It is easy to see the differences and similarities between the two subjects in this essay by using a comparison essay mind map.

3.3 Research Essay Mind Map

A research essay is an essay that offers information on a specific subject that you have looked into and is unrelated to you. By doing research, you can find out more about the subject. The research outline mind map gives students a plan of action, especially at the beginning of the research. It can be applied as a critical thinking technique for problem-solving. Looking at this essay mind map template, you can easily concentrate on and comprehend the target ideas.

3.4 Thesis Statement Essay mind map

A thesis statement is a statement that summarizes the key idea of your essay. Usually, it follows your introduction. Your thesis will be slightly different depending on the type of essay you are writing. But the main point you want to make is always stated in the thesis statement. For this, follow the thesis statement essay mind maps. This essay mind map template is beneficial in deciding the best thesis statement for your essay.

3.5 Interpretive essay mind map

An interpretive essay is a form of writing that recognizes, assesses, and analyzes the author's methods in a specific work. This essay offers an interpretation of a previously published form of writing.

4. Tips for Essay Mind Maps

If you adhere to some tips for  mind maps for essays , writing essays can be enjoyable. So, here are some tips for essay mind maps that you must follow:

• Always place the topic you want to talk about in the middle of the mind map. 

You should save money to cover any unexpected financial needs.

• Use images, icons, and colors whenever you can. These serve as mental triggers and can help in your ability to generate fresh ideas.

Investing is essential for growing money so that you can achieve your goals.

• To write the ideas on to the branches, always use relevant keywords.

Financial security through insurance ensures that you and your family can get through difficult times.

• Draw lines to indicate cross-links between the information in different parts of a mind map.

5. Conclusion

In this article, we have discussed everything that you must know. So, if you want to save time and other resources, use mind map templates for different essays.

You can find these templates on EdrawMind . Unlike other software, this has an excellent user interface with straight forward drag-and-drop features. So what are you waiting for, then? Create a mind map for the essay right away by downloading EdrawMind.

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Extended Essay: Using Brainstorming and Mind Maps

• Extended Essay- The Basics
• Step 1. Choose a Subject
• Step 2. Educate yourself!
• Using Brainstorming and Mind Maps
• Identify Keywords
• Do Background Reading
• Define Your Topic
• Conduct Research in a Specific Discipline
• Step 5. Draft a Research Question
• Step 6. Create a Timeline
• Find Articles
• Find Primary Sources
• Get Help from Experts
• Search Engines, Repositories, & Directories
• Databases and Websites by Subject Area
• Create an Annotated Bibliography
• Advice (and Warnings) from the IB
• Chicago Citation Syle
• MLA Works Cited & In-Text Citations
• Step 9. Set Deadlines for Yourself
• Step 10. Plan a structure for your essay
• Evaluate & Select: the CRAAP Test
• Conducting Secondary Research
• Conducting Primary Research
• Formal vs. Informal Writing
• Presentation Requirements
• Evaluating Your Work

Brainstorming

Coggle.it is a free, easy-to-use web application for creating beautiful informative diagrams and mindmaps.

 For a tutorial video introduction, click the Coggle:  

Mind Map Inspiration

If you find it easier you can, of course, brainstorm and mind map on a big piece of paper with some colored pens or a big board with some post-it notes!

Choose whichever method works best for you.

At  Mind Map Inspiration  artist  Paul Foreman offers example Mind Maps ® for inspiration and motivation, plus mindmapping tips, drawing tips, techniques for enhancing your creativity, and improving idea generation.

See the process of mind mapping from start :

Mind Maps ® were invented by Tony Buzan

Mindmapping helps us progress from linear (one-dimensional) through lateral (two-dimensional) to radiant (multi-dimensional) thinking.

• << Previous: Step 3. Researcher's Reflection Space (RRS)
• Next: Step 4. Choose a Topic >>
• Last Updated: May 8, 2024 3:48 PM
• URL: https://libguides.westsoundacademy.org/ee

Learn How to Make a Mind Map to Enhance Productivity

The process of creating a mind map is simple, intuitive, and powerful. Use pen and paper or software to learn how to make a mind map quickly and easily. Once you learn, you’ll be able to brainstorm ideas, plan projects , and develop your creativity.

How to make a mind map

A mind map starts with a single central topic . It then b ranches outward with topics and subtopics that reflect your ideas. Branches often contain images and icons to enhance the information.  

If you’re using a pen and paper, turn the paper sideways before you begin ; this provides a larger space to map. If you’re using mind mapping software , you won’t have to worry about running out of space. These tools give you a nearly infinite canvas.

Step 1. Define your central topic 

Consider the focus of your mind map and put that in the center of your page. For example, if you’re planning out your future business , you’d put “My Business” as the central topic. If you were writing a book summary, you might use the book title as the primary topic of your mind map.

For our example, we’ll use a mind map to plan out a simple to-do list, so we’ll put “My To-Do List” as our central topic.  

Step 2. Create your first-level topics

Next, think about the ideas that come to mind or the big ‘categories’ that relate to your central topic . Draw these branches out from the center. For our to-do list mind map, we’ve identified four main branches as Work, Study, Health, and Home.

Imagine these are based on the four key areas where we have tasks to complete. Your mind map might have more than four main branches or fewer, it’s up to you. 

Step 3. Expand your branches

Once you have your first-level topics, imagine these expanding like tree branches . Think about how to expand on a single idea, or break it down into smaller parts. In this example, we’ve broken our first-level topics into subtopics. So, our “Home” topic is expanded to include Children, Finance, and Vacation.

From this point, we can continue to expand branches as far as we want. For example, you’ll see below that we start to add tasks and other ideas onto our branches. There is no limit to how far out your branches might expand if you’re using mind mapping software. You can continue to build as far as you need. 

When building your mind map, try to use just keywords in your topics and subtopics, rather than writing long sentences. This will help to keep it manageable, and avoid key information being lost in too many words. 

Step 4. Add images (if it helps)

Many people find it helpful to add small illustrations, doodles, images, or icons to their mind maps to help certain information stand out. Pictures also help to personalize the content and make it more memorable.

In our example, we’ve customized the map by adding some images to our first-level topics. You could also add a small icon to some tasks that are more urgent so that these items stand out in the mind map.  

Remember, there is no requirement to add images to your mind maps, and adding too many images can make it feel cluttered and detract from the key information. Try to be selective and purposeful in adding images to your mind map. Any images added should help you better understand the information. 

Mind mapping is an extremely simple process that can be applied to almost anything. Some maps may be finished after five minutes, and others may continue to develop for five years, depending on the focus and purpose of the mind map. There are no fixed rules to obey, or specific techniques to stick to, so experiment and see what works for you.

Hopefully, the guidance above provides you with some practical help as you take your first steps in mind mapping . The best way to learn is to go give it a try! 

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33 Interesting Writing Prompts for Language Learners (of All Levels)

When your language teachers and tutors advise you to get more writing practice , it can be hard to follow their guidance.

If your daily life isn’t action-packed, keeping a diary in your target language can get boring and repetitive, but what other topics can you discuss?

Whether you’re a beginner or an advanced learner, there are plenty of great things to write about. Here are 33 writing prompts for language learners to get you started.

Beginner Writing Prompts

1. who are you, 2. what are your favorite hobbies, 3. what’s your family like, 4. what’s your best friend like, 5. where do you live, 6. what’s your favorite food, 7. what’s your favorite season, 8. what’s your favorite movie or tv show, 9. describe your daily routine., 10. what are you going to do this weekend, 11. what’s your favorite animal, intermediate writing prompts, 12. what’s the funniest thing that has ever happened to you, 13. where would you like to go on vacation, 14. what’s the best vacation, trip or outing you’ve ever had, 15. where do you see yourself in five years, 16. what are your goals for the future, 17. what were you like as a child, 18. write a poem (rhyming or not) about something that inspires you., 19. pretend you’re instructing someone on how to do your favorite activity., 20. what’s your favorite (or your family’s favorite) tradition.

• 21. What do you think the world will be like in 50 years? 

22. Why is education important?

Advanced writing prompts, 23. if you were given three wishes, what would you wish for, 24. what do you think the most significant world problem is, 25. if you could change one thing about society, what would you change, 26. how has the internet affected communication how do you see it affecting communication in the future, 27. what do you think would be an ideal political system does an ideal system exist, 28. who’s responsible for poverty why does it exist, and how could it be resolved, 29. what’s your favorite literary work, and what has it taught you, 30. if you could teach your future children or other children of the future one lesson, what would it be, 31. what medical issues have you or your loved ones faced how did you handle them or how do you continue to handle them, 32. what topics are not adequately addressed in schools today why should these topics be addressed more, 33. describe a recent world event. what are the potential consequences of this event, why use foreign language writing prompts, how to get the most out of writing prompts for language learners, and one more thing....

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Beginning level students usually know basic vocabulary related to describing people, weather, food, animals, routines and related topics.

Writing as a beginning student can be a bit tricky because you don’t yet have a vast vocabulary. Additionally, your verb conjugation abilities are probably limited, so you may need to stick to the present tense.

These writing prompts can be answered with simple, general vocabulary and present tense verbs , so they’re ideal for beginning students.

You can take this question in a wide variety of directions. Based on what vocabulary you want to practice, you might describe your appearance, your job and/or your interests. If you want to try using more advanced-level vocabulary, you could try getting more philosophical with your response.

Everyone has something they like to do. What are your favorite hobbies? If your vocabulary is limited, you might try simple responses, like “I like sports.” However, as your vocabulary gets more advanced, you can add more detail into your response. For instance, “I like sports, especially soccer. My favorite thing about soccer is hitting the ball with my head.”

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What do they look like? What are their personalities like? How is each person related to you? What are their interests? This prompt can be used for quick, easy writing practice or for a book-length extended project.

You can describe your friend physically, describe their personality and/or explain what you like to do together. If you already know some past tense verbs, you might even tell a story about something that happened with your friend in the past to illustrate what your friend is like.

You could even break this one down into a series of prompts. Describe your neighborhood. Describe your city. Describe your state. Describe your country. You might discuss the layout, culture, businesses, natural environment or how you feel about your location.

Not only can you name the dish and list the ingredients, you can also describe how it tastes. As your language skills progress, you might even try explaining how the dish is made.

With this prompt, you can address a variety of subtopics. What is the weather like? What does the season look like? How does it feel? What events or holidays happen during the season?

You can describe what happens in the movie or TV show in either past or present tense. You might also note the genre and/or describe the characters.

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Major bonus points if you can describe a Netflix movie or TV show  that you also watch in your target language!

Beginning students commonly learn words related to daily routines, so go through your day and explain what you do. When do you wake up? How do you get ready for work or school? What do you eat for breakfast? When do you leave for work or school? How do you get there? What do you do once you’re there? What do you eat for lunch? When do you leave? What do you eat for dinner? How do you relax in the evening?

This question can be a little more advanced in that you could use future tense verbs. However, if you don’t yet know future tense, depending on what your target language is, you may be able to simply use “I am going to…” constructions. Writing about your plans can help you practice words for common activities and prepare you for real conversations you may have with native speakers.

You might describe the animal, what it looks like, what it eats, where it lives, etc. This can give you practice with animal words, physical descriptions, food words and location-related vocabulary.

As an intermediate writer, it’s time to up your game. Now, you can use a broader range of vocabulary words and verb tenses. These prompts will help you make good use of your advancing skills.

Whip out your past tense verbs for this one! Consider writing the story of the funniest thing you’ve experienced. Maybe it’s something that happened to you or maybe it’s just something you witnessed. Regardless, this will give you practice with more diverse vocabulary and past tense verbs.

This prompt invites you to give your conditional verb tenses a workout. Where would you like to go? Why would you like to visit this location? What would you like to do there? Who would you go with?

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Describing the best out-of-the-ordinary experience you’ve had, whether a vacation or any other break from daily routine, gives you an opportunity to use plenty of past tense verbs. You might even work in some less common verbs to describe specific activities you participated in, like snorkeling or skiing. You can describe the experience, who you were with, what you did and what made it so enjoyable. Feeling nostalgic? Look at old photos if you have them and describe them in your target language.

Oh, the age-old interview question! In your native language, it’s probably an uncomfortable opportunity to reflect on your goals, but in your target language, it can be a valuable way to practice using future, conditional and/or subjunctive verb tenses while also employing industry-specific vocabulary.

Plus, if you ever need to do a job interview in your target language, you’ll be happy you have the practice. If you like this prompt, you might even consider using some of  The Muse’s list of common interview questions  for additional writing prompts.

What do you hope to achieve in your life? You might use future tense here, but if you prefer present tense, you can use an “I want to…” or related construction. From there, you can use all sorts of vocabulary words related to your career, family, housing, etc.

Use past tense to describe yourself as a child. You might describe your appearance or personality. To work in more advanced vocabulary, you might also note in what ways you challenged your parents and what you wanted to be when you grew up.

Writing poetry can be a fun way to use your language skills. To make it a little trickier, write in rhyme. You can write about whatever you like, but you can’t go wrong with a love poem. After all, you can always re-purpose it down the road if need be.

Whether it’s cooking, painting or playing Fortnite, this will require the use of commands and a strong vocabulary related to whatever activity you write about.

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Whether they’re monthly or yearly, passed down through generations or made up on the spot, traditions shared by people can be a lot of fun. But they also afford a lot of opportunities to use whatever verb conjugations you need to practice. You can talk about your favorite tradition from the past, how you practice it today or how you hope to practice it in the future. You could even instruct readers on how to adopt your favorite tradition.

21. What do you think the world will be like in 50 years?  

Think about society, culture and major world issues. How do you think everything will change and evolve? Not only can you use future tense verbs, but this prompt will give you the opportunity to use more advanced vocabulary related to science, technology, culture and/or politics. Depending on your vision, you could even expand your work into a sci-fi or dystopian novel.

This prompt could work with either present tense or conditional verbs. However, more importantly, it invites you to use plenty of more advanced vocabulary relating to learning, careers and society. Responding to this prompt could even serve as extra motivation by reminding you why education or learning of any kind (including your language learning) is so important to you.

As an advanced student, you should be aiming to write without having to think too much. You should be able to navigate seamlessly between any verb tenses and use your large and diverse vocabulary effectively. These prompts aim to help you exercise a broad array of skills.

Okay, you might not have a genie in a bottle, but what would you ask for if you did? This question invites the use of conditional tense verbs. Plus, the vocabulary you use is likely to be as diverse and varied as your dreams.

Writing about current world problems can help you use vocabulary words that are relevant today but might not be terribly common. While you could use present tense, you might also use future and/or conditional tense to examine how this issue could cause long-term consequences.

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Take this world’s problems and turn them around! Considering what you would change about society will give you an opportunity to use conditional tense and/or commands to explain what needs to change and how.

Past and future tense in one prompt? How can you resist? Not only that, this prompt invites you to use the latest technology-related words, which are super useful for advanced learners.

This prompt invites you to use advanced vocabulary related to politics and society. Plus, you can use it to practice the conditional tense, future tense and/or subjunctive tense verbs.

This question may feel nearly impossible to answer in your native language, so it will be even more challenging in your target language. However, if you give it a try, you’ll be able to practice words related to society and politics. While you’ll probably use mostly present tense verbs, you might also work in some conditional, subjunctive, future and/or past tense.

Using key literary terms is often reserved for academia, so writing about your favorite literary work will certainly give your vocabulary a workout. While this will be largely in present tense, you might throw in a few other verb tenses for good measure.

What’s the best lesson you’ve learned? Why do you want others to learn it? This question is complex enough that you might incorporate a huge array of verb tenses.

Medical terminology can be a little tricky, but practicing using it is useful , particularly if it relates to a medical condition you or loved ones have. Writing about medical issues and their treatments will reinforce medical vocabulary and past tense verbs. Plus, if you ever experience a medical emergency abroad, you might be relieved to have practiced relevant vocabulary.

You’re educated. You know what’s up. What do you think should be covered more in schools? Addressing this issue gives you an opportunity to use education terms, present tense verbs and conditional verbs.

Not only can you use vocabulary that’s currently relevant, you can also use an array of verb tenses. Start with past tense and then transition to future, conditional and/or subjunctive tenses. Using this writing prompt can help you practice transitioning smoothly between tenses.

• Using foreign language writing prompts can help reduce anxiety when writing in your target language . Staring at a blank page can be stressful and can make you want to procrastinate trying to write, but writing prompts can make writing seem less like hard work.
• You can also use foreign language writing prompts to determine what vocabulary and/or grammar you need to work on . Writing can help you detect what grammar rules you’re struggling with and what holes in your vocabulary you need to fill.
• Writing prompts can help you keep your target language in shape . Skills can slip over time, so continuing to practice your writing can help prevent backsliding.
• Using writing prompts can help make it so that writing in your target language feels easy and requires less conscious effort .  Writing in a foreign language is a skill like any other. The more you practice it, the easier it will become.
• Don’t just write. Read. To write well in your target language, you’ll need to also read in your target language. Luckily, there are plenty of places to read content in your target language .  Project Gutenberg  offers many classic works in several languages, and  BBC News  gives you news stories in a variety of languages.
• Write as often as possible. Writing as often as possible not only gives you the practice you need to improve your skills, it also keeps you in the habit. If you set aside a few minutes each day for your writing practice, you’re less likely to forget to do it.
• Try to use specific rules or vocabulary you’ve recently learned. Trying to use specific grammar rules and vocabulary you’ve recently learned is a terrific way to practice using your new skills. It reinforces them and makes them easier to use the next time.
• As you write, note what you’re struggling with. While you’re writing, you’ll probably notice a few hiccups. For instance, you may want a word but realize you don’t know it. Whenever you encounter one of these problems, jot it down. Then, after you write, you can go over your notes to work to resolve whatever issues you struggled with.
• Read what you’ve written and correct your own work. Once you’ve responded to a writing prompt, read over your work with a critical eye. What errors do you notice? How could you improve your writing? Going over your work gives you an opportunity to spot some errors you didn’t notice as you wrote.
• Consider having a native speaker correct your work. You might ask a friend or a tutor to read over your writing and tell you what they think. You could also consider finding a tutor through italki. Even finding someone to do a one-time check of your writing on occasion can be a huge help.

With these writing prompts for all levels, you’ll never be at a loss for words.

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Freshman requirements

• Subject requirement (A-G)
• GPA requirement
• Admission by exception
• English language proficiency
• UC graduation requirements

Additional information for

• California residents
• Out-of-state students
• Home-schooled students

Transfer requirements

• Understanding UC transfer
• Preparing to transfer
• UC transfer programs
• Transfer planning tools

International applicants

• Applying for admission
• English language proficiency (TOEFL/IELTS)
• Passports & visas
• Living accommodations
• Health care & insurance

AP & Exam credits

Applying as a freshman

• Filling out the application
• Dates & deadlines

Personal insight questions

• How applications are reviewed
• After you apply

Applying as a transfer

Types of aid

• Grants & scholarships
• Jobs & work-study
• California DREAM Loan Program
• Middle Class Scholarship Program
• Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan
• Native American Opportunity Plan  
• Who can get financial aid
• How aid works
• Estimate your aid

Apply for financial aid

• Cal Dream Act application tips
• Tuition & cost of attendance
• Glossary & resources
• Santa Barbara
• Campus program & support services
• Check majors
• Freshman admit data
• Transfer admit data
• Native American Opportunity Plan
• You will have 8 questions to choose from. You must respond to only 4 of the 8 questions.
• Each response is limited to a maximum of 350 words.
• Which questions you choose to answer is entirely up to you. However, you should select questions that are most relevant to your experience and that best reflect your individual circumstances.

Keep in mind

• All questions are equal. All are given equal consideration in the application review process, which means there is no advantage or disadvantage to choosing certain questions over others.
• There is no right or wrong way to answer these questions. It’s about getting to know your personality, background, interests and achievements in your own unique voice.  
• Use the additional comments field if there are issues you'd like to address that you didn't have the opportunity to discuss elsewhere on the application. This shouldn't be an essay, but rather a place to note unusual circumstances or anything that might be unclear in other parts of the application. You may use the additional comments field to note extraordinary circumstances related to COVID-19, if necessary. 

Questions & guidance

Remember, the personal insight questions are just that—personal. Which means you should use our guidance for each question just as a suggestion in case you need help. The important thing is expressing who you are, what matters to you and what you want to share with UC. 

1. Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time. Things to consider: A leadership role can mean more than just a title. It can mean being a mentor to others, acting as the person in charge of a specific task, or taking the lead role in organizing an event or project. Think about what you accomplished and what you learned from the experience. What were your responsibilities?

Did you lead a team? How did your experience change your perspective on leading others? Did you help to resolve an important dispute at your school, church, in your community or an organization? And your leadership role doesn't necessarily have to be limited to school activities. For example, do you help out or take care of your family? 2. Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side. Things to consider: What does creativity mean to you? Do you have a creative skill that is important to you? What have you been able to do with that skill? If you used creativity to solve a problem, what was your solution? What are the steps you took to solve the problem?

How does your creativity influence your decisions inside or outside the classroom? Does your creativity relate to your major or a future career? 3. What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time? Things to consider: If there is a talent or skill that you're proud of, this is the time to share it.You don't necessarily have to be recognized or have received awards for your talent (although if you did and you want to talk about it, feel free to do so). Why is this talent or skill meaningful to you?

Does the talent come naturally or have you worked hard to develop this skill or talent? Does your talent or skill allow you opportunities in or outside the classroom? If so, what are they and how do they fit into your schedule? 4. Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced. Things to consider: An educational opportunity can be anything that has added value to your educational experience and better prepared you for college. For example, participation in an honors or academic enrichment program, or enrollment in an academy that's geared toward an occupation or a major, or taking advanced courses that interest you; just to name a few.

If you choose to write about educational barriers you've faced, how did you overcome or strive to overcome them? What personal characteristics or skills did you call on to overcome this challenge? How did overcoming this barrier help shape who you are today? 5. Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement? Things to consider: A challenge could be personal, or something you have faced in your community or school. Why was the challenge significant to you? This is a good opportunity to talk about any obstacles you've faced and what you've learned from the experience. Did you have support from someone else or did you handle it alone?

If you're currently working your way through a challenge, what are you doing now, and does that affect different aspects of your life? For example, ask yourself, How has my life changed at home, at my school, with my friends or with my family? 6. Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom. Things to consider:  Many students have a passion for one specific academic subject area, something that they just can't get enough of. If that applies to you, what have you done to further that interest? Discuss how your interest in the subject developed and describe any experience you have had inside and outside the classroom such as volunteer work, internships, employment, summer programs, participation in student organizations and/or clubs and what you have gained from your involvement.

Has your interest in the subject influenced you in choosing a major and/or future career? Have you been able to pursue coursework at a higher level in this subject (honors, AP, IB, college or university work)? Are you inspired to pursue this subject further at UC, and how might you do that?

7. What have you done to make your school or your community a better place? Things to consider: Think of community as a term that can encompass a group, team or a place like your high school, hometown or home. You can define community as you see fit, just make sure you talk about your role in that community. Was there a problem that you wanted to fix in your community?

Why were you inspired to act? What did you learn from your effort? How did your actions benefit others, the wider community or both? Did you work alone or with others to initiate change in your community? 8. Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California? Things to consider:  If there's anything you want us to know about you but didn't find a question or place in the application to tell us, now's your chance. What have you not shared with us that will highlight a skill, talent, challenge or opportunity that you think will help us know you better?

From your point of view, what do you feel makes you an excellent choice for UC? Don't be afraid to brag a little.

Writing tips

Start early..

Give yourself plenty of time for preparation, careful composition and revisions.

Write persuasively.

Making a list of accomplishments, activities, awards or work will lessen the impact of your words. Expand on a topic by using specific, concrete examples to support the points you want to make.

Use “I” statements.

Talk about yourself so that we can get to know your personality, talents, accomplishments and potential for success on a UC campus. Use “I” and “my” statements in your responses.

Proofread and edit.

Although you will not be evaluated on grammar, spelling or sentence structure, you should proofread your work and make sure your writing is clear. Grammatical and spelling errors can be distracting to the reader and get in the way of what you’re trying to communicate.

Solicit feedback.

Your answers should reflect your own ideas and be written by you alone, but others — family, teachers and friends can offer valuable suggestions. Ask advice of whomever you like, but do not plagiarize from sources in print or online and do not use anyone's words, published or unpublished, but your own.

Copy and paste.

Once you are satisfied with your answers, save them in plain text (ASCII) and paste them into the space provided in the application. Proofread once more to make sure no odd characters or line breaks have appeared.

This is one of many pieces of information we consider in reviewing your application. Your responses can only add value to the application. An admission decision will not be based on this section alone.

Need more help?

Download our worksheets:

• English [PDF]
• Spanish [PDF]