• SimCAMM Rules – Step 8 of 10

  Filed under Barristers, Law Lecturers, Law Students, Practising Lawyers, Trial Lawyers
  Feb 16
  

  Reduce your text strategically

  CLICK HERE to download a PDF copy of the SimCAMM Rules.

  STEP 8: ‘Reduce’ The Text In Your Mind Map

  The biggest mistake you can make with mind mapping is to get carried away with writing slabs of text on each branch. Although your mind map is still useful (because the power of mind mapping comes from the fact that it is a visual representation of text), you will be massively limiting the impact your mind map could have on you or your readers if you don’t ‘reduce’ the text in your mind map.

  There are two (2) things you need to do when reducing text:

  • cut out as many non-key terms from your mind map (and, obviously, keep ALL the key terms and phrases) – this will take practice but after creating a number of mind maps you will find it gets easier and you’ll have more confidence to remove all the unnecessary words. In fact, this step is one of the greatest powers of mind mapping. It forces you to streamline your knowledge down to the basic concepts. The rest of the words are just ‘fluff’.Remember how Dr Buzan said that the power of mind mapping is that you cut out 50-90% of all non-key words? He is absolutely right! And, consequently, if you significantly reduce the number of words you need to consider when studying or reviewing a particular topic, invariably you will increase your efficiency, effectiveness and understanding by much more than 40%; and
  • split up your key words into various logical sub branches so that they are better linked and make for easier understanding.
  Tagged as: Law Students, mind map, mind mapping, mind mapping for lawyers, mind mapping laws, mind mapping rules, SimCAMM Rules, studying law
  
  1 Comment

One Response to “SimCAMM Rules – Step 8 of 10”

1. 

   Marty said on February 21st, 2010 at 6:44 AM

   Good points, Mike. I have a lot of trouble minimising text on the map and I’ll take your advice and cull them down in the future. At times, I see the need for the mindmap to represent a logical flow of *information*; so the blob of text itself is almost intrinsically connected to the visual representation. I’m less concerned about the quantity of text and more concerned about illustrating the flow. I’ve just pulled out a map I did a few days ago and taken your advice – far easier to ‘read’.

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