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| Information Skills |
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Good information skills are essential for successful professionals. Early in your career you must successfully study and digest a huge volume of information, simply to become effective. As you become increasingly successful, you will need to assimilate a vast number of documents, data and reports, as well as all the information you need to keep up-to-date in your field.
This section of Mind Tools gives you a range of skills to help you do this. The articles on reading help you to increase your reading speed and become highly selective in what you read. The item on review techniques helps you to keep information fresh in your mind. The article on note-taking gives you a powerful tool for recording useful information. While you are reading these articles, have a look at the study skills book reviews, resources and stores on the sidebars - these will help you to develop your study skills even further. |
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| • Introduction |
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| The techniques in this section help you to master information. By using them you will be able to improve: |
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Your reading skills, so that you can find the information you need quickly and easily. |
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The way you make notes, so that they become clear and easy to understand, and quick to review. |
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Your review techniques, so that you can keep information fresh in your mind. |
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These techniques will help you to assimilate information quickly. This may involve keeping yourself up-to-date on events within your field, absorbing information within reports or learning specialist information needed to complete a project.
These techniques will help you to assimilate information quickly. This may involve keeping yourself up-to-date on events within your field, absorbing information within reports or learning specialist information needed to complete a project. These are also very useful tools for mastering course material where you are studying for exams.
They work particularly well in conjunction with the mnemonics described in the Mind Tools Memory Techniques section - used together these two sets of tools will give you a formidable advantage in organizing and remembering information. This is often what exams are about. Techniques discussed are:
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How to take notes effectively - Mind Maps |
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Fully absorbing written information - SQ3R |
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Speed Reading |
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Reading faster by thinking what to read - Reading Strategies |
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Keeping information fresh in your mind - Review Techniques |
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Mind Maps are powerful tools for recording and organizing information. They do this in a format that is easy to review. Once you understand and start using Mind Maps, you will never again want to take notes using conventional techniques.
The next three techniques (SQ3R, Speed Reading and use of Reading Strategies) help you to assimilate and understand written information quickly and efficiently. The section on Review Techniques will help you to keep information that you have already learned alive in your mind. For the first of these articles, click 'Next article' below. Other relevant destinations are shown in the "Where to go from here" list underneath. |
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| • Mind Maps - A Powerful Approach to Note Taking |
| "Mind Map" is a trade mark of the Buzan Organization |
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| • How to Use Tool |
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Mind Mapping is an important technique that improves the way you take notes, and supports and enhances your creative problem solving. By using Mind Maps, you can quickly identify and understand the structure of a subject and the way that pieces of information fit together, as well as recording the raw facts contained in normal notes. More than this, Mind Maps provide a structure which encourages creative problem solving, and they hold information in a format that your mind will find easy to remember and quick to review.
Popularized by Tony Buzan, Mind Maps abandon the list format of conventional note taking. They do this in favor of a two-dimensional structure. A good Mind Map shows the 'shape' of the subject, the relative importance of individual points and the way in which one fact relates to other.
Mind Maps are more compact than conventional notes, often taking up one side of paper. This helps you to make associations easily. If you find out more information after you have drawn the main Mind Map, then you can easily integrate it with little disruption.
Mind Maps are also useful for:
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summarizing information |
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consolidating information from different research sources |
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thinking through complex problems |
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presenting information that shows the overall structure of your subject |
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Mind Maps are also very quick to review, as it is easy to refresh information in your mind just by glancing at one.Mind Maps can also be effective mnemonics. Remembering the shape and structure of a Mind Map can provide the cues necessary to remember the information within it. They engage much more of the brain in the process of assimilating and connecting facts than conventional notes. |
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| • Drawing Basic Mind Maps |
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This site was researched and planned using Mind Maps. They are too large to publish here, however part of one is shown below. This shows research into time management skills:
To make notes on a subject using a Mind Map, draw it in the following way:
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Write the title of the subject in the center of the page, and draw a circle around it. This is shown by the circle marked 1 in the figure 1. |
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For the major subject subheadings, draw lines out from this circle. Label these lines with the subheadings. These are shown by the lines marked 2 in figure 1. |
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If you have another level of information belonging to the subheadings above, draw these and link them to the subheading lines. These are shown by the lines marked 3 in figure 1. |
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Finally, for individual facts or ideas, draw lines out from the appropriate heading line and label them. These are shown by the lines marked 4 in figure 1. |
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As you come across new information, link it in to the Mind Map appropriately.
A complete Mind Map may have main topic lines radiating in all directions from the center. Sub-topics and facts will branch off these, like branches and twigs from the trunk of a tree. You do not need to worry about the structure produced, as this will evolve of its own accord.
Note that the idea of numbered 'levels' in Figure 1 is only used to help show how the Mind Map was created. All we are showing is that major headings radiate from the center, with lower level headings and facts branching off from the higher level headings.
While drawing Mind Maps by hand is appropriate in many cases, software tools like MindGenius improve the process by helping to you to produce high quality Concept Maps, which can easily be edited and redrafted.
Improving your Mind Maps
Your Mind Maps are your own property: once you understand how to make notes in the Mind Map format, you can develop your own conventions to take them further. The following suggestions may help to increase their effectiveness:
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Use single words or simple phrases for information |
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Most words in normal writing are padding, as they ensure that facts are conveyed in the correct context, and in a format that is pleasant to read. In your own Mind Maps, single strong words and meaningful phrases can convey the same meaning more potently. Excess words just clutter the Mind Map. |
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Print words |
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Joined up or indistinct writing can be more difficult to read. |
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Use color to separate different ideas |
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This will help you to separate ideas where necessary. It also helps you to visualize of the Mind Map for recall. Color also helps to show the organization of the subject. |
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Use symbols and images |
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Where a symbol or picture means something to you, use it. Pictures can help you to remember information more effectively than words. |
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Using cross-linkages |
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Information in one part of the Mind Map may relate to another part. Here you can draw in lines to show the cross-linkages. This helps you to see how one part of the subject affects another. |
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| • Key points |
Mind Maps provide an extremely effective method of taking notes. They show not only facts, but also the overall structure of a subject and the relative importance of individual parts of it. Mind Maps help you to associate ideas and make connections that might not otherwise make. If you do any form of research or note taking, try experimenting with Mind Maps. You will find them surprisingly effective! |
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