MAW: Academic Writing for Master's Degree
Petr Štěpánek (325065)
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN USING LINEAR NOTES
AND MIND MAPS AT UNIVERSITIES IN THE
CZECH REPUBLIC
Despite the principle of mind mapping being known for 2000 years (The Mind Mapping Site,
2011), it has not been used in the Czech education system yet. Students are still taught to write
down notes from the lectures in a linear way and courses aimed at mind mapping are rare. In
this essay we will contrast linear notes and mind maps from the point of different use cases and
the amount of effort needed when creating and using them.
Learning is the main activity of students. They can learn from their linear notes from the
beginning to the end with hardly any relationships or connections acquired from the text. On the
other hand, when student creates a mind map, she will be made to think about the subject
matter and shorten it into one or a few pages. Learning from a well created mind map is easier,
faster, more beneficial and more enjoyable. A similar point is held by Budd (2004: 41) as well as
Buzan and Buzan (1996).
Academic writing has to be precise, coherent and well structured. Therefore a non negligible
amount of good preparation is needed to compose it. The student should have an overview of
the subject matter, then choose the main points to write about and finally structure them. When
the complete subject matter is not known to the student, she needs to go through the linear
notes, select main ideas and then make a structure, for example using bullet list. Nevertheless,
preparation using linear notes is less effective, as stated by Kirchner (2009: 29). Whereas
making a mind map for the subject overview, for the brainstorming and then for selection of the
main points, leads to better ideas and content.
Linear notes are well known and easy to do for students in the Czech Republic. This is because
teachers themselves do not know how to use mind mapping and therefore continue to use linear
notes. Mind maps are not easy to learn. There are several rules that establish general principles
however other rules can be made by the individual users. The bottleneck is that students have to
liberate themselves from the linear concept of thinking.
Finally, we will review linear notes and mind maps from the time consumption’s point of view.
As linear notes are easy to write and less demanding in terms of thinking in contrast to mind
maps, students need considerably less time to make linear notes, although practical training can
reduce the difference. Nevertheless learning from the linear notes takes considerably more time
than learning from mind maps.
As it was shown, there are lot of differences between a linear approach and an approach that
uses mind maps. Mind mapping is in general more beneficial for learning and writing, but this
method is not successful in all cases. There are a few obstacles to mind mapping that should be
considered as well. Nevertheless, the method of drawing mind maps merits serious attention in
university studies and should be used in appropriate cases instead of linear notes.
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MAW: Academic Writing for Master's Degree
Petr Štěpánek (325065)
REFERENCES
Budd, J.W. 2004, "MIND MAPS AS CLASSROOM EXERCISES", Journal of Economic Education, vol.
35, no. 1, pp. 35-46.
Buzan, T. and Buzan, B. 1996. The mind map book: how to use radiant thinking to maximize your
brain's untapped potential. 1st Plume print. New York: Plume.
Kirchner, B. 2009, MIND-MAP your way to an idea, Kalmbach Publishing Company, Boston.
The Mind Mapping Site, 2011, History of Mind Mapping. [online] Available at: <
http://www.mindmappingsite.com/history/history/history-of-mind-mapping> [Accessed 24
November 2013].
Summary of feedback

A thoughtful, well structured piece in appropriately formal English.

Use of ‘then’ in lists as in e.g., ‘…she needs to go through the linear notes, then select main
ideas and then draw up a structure ...’ As you can see, it is more idiomatic to use ‘then’ before
the last item in the list’.

Harvard (author, date) references: See my changes as in the following example. ‘A similar
point is held by Budd (2004: 41)’. You could have also said ‘Budd makes a similar point
(Budd, 20014: 41).’

‘Matter’: I have replaced this with ‘subject matter’ or simply ‘subject’ as this is more
idiomatic. However, if the academic literature on mind mapping prefers ‘matter’ then ignore
my corrections.

Use of basic verbs like ‘do’, ‘make’: If you can find a more accurately descriptive verb then
use this instead e.g., instead of ‘make’, draw up, create, produce, etc.

Use of ‘we’: This is appropriate when authorship is shared between two or more writers.
However for a single-author paper ‘we’ is a little old fashioned. I’d suggest either ‘I’ or use of
the passive.

Repetition: See the following example where I have deleted the second ‘are’ in order to aid
sentence flow. ‘Linear notes are easy to write and are less demanding in terms of thinking…’
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