3. As you write things down, you try to put them in their place on the map.

Example

This is the question we have been given. As a member of your school's student association committee, you are expected to give some assembly talks on general issues.

The principal has noted the media is often commenting on weight problems faced by many young people nowadays. She asks you to talk to the junior formers about this.

We put weight control in the box in the centre.

Then we start thinking of ideas and words: we come up with diet, exercise, lifestyle, fast food, couch potato. We think of the reasons for staying slim.

We remember over-eating can be a sign of unhappiness.

We start putting our ideas on the map. Both diet and exercise are aspects of lifestyle.

They are two parallel approaches to staying slim. We show this by our organisation of the map. We can put lifestyle under Weight Control, and then Diet and Exercise next to each other under that.

The points we want to make about these topics can then be numbered below them. Couch potato belongs near Exercise.

Reasons for staying slim are something different. We put them in a different place on the map.

The point about unhappiness can be put near the end. We put it at the bottom of our map.

Gradually the map takes shape and we know how to write our essay.

A mind map diagram

Exercise 1

Topic: Should smoking be banned in all public places?

Write SMOKING BAN in the middle of your paper. We have brainstormed some words and ideas for you. Create a helpful writing map out of them.

Jobs

Passive smoking

Right to clean air

Legal activity

Business objections

Practical?

Cigarette butts

Freedom

Smell

Health

Definition of public place?

Hard to enforce

Tourism

Air already polluted

Home problem made worse

Smoke in eyes

Addiction

Make it a shameful habit

Exercise 2

Topic: Schools should offer regular drama classes.

Create a mind map of your own for this topic.