How to use Mind Maps when writing documents?
Good day!
About Mind Maps (mental maps) know, probably, many.
I first became interested in this way of presenting information quite recently, about 2 years ago - I attracted a clear and detailed structured information while at the same time allowing a wide coverage of the whole picture. It seems to me that it is this need - in structuredness and simultaneous wide coverage - that we meet at meetings, or in the process of thinking over ideas, brainstorming, etc., when we draw all sorts of schemes, trees, and other pictures with a pencil on paper, allowing only one look at them to recall in detail the entire conversation and the main key ideas. And mental maps are just another methodology, a technology in the construction of such pictures, and, in my opinion, very successful.
')
I don’t set my goal now to describe in detail what these cards give, how to build them, how to read them, and so on - an interested person can easily find a large amount of relevant information, since this topic is booming, and I’m not that experienced this business. Let me just say that I applied them in such tasks and processes as brainstorming, fixing the course of meetings and conclusions, planning (including financial), note taking lectures, and, finally, the process of creating documents.
Here is the latest application and will be discussed.
Developing a large enough technical document (project concept, technical task, etc.), we start working out the basic skeleton of the document at the very beginning - its main idea is what sections it will have, we outline what will be in these sections. In addition, at this stage, any ideas arise, usually in a crowd and chaotically, and we fix these ideas in the document itself, in the form of temporary records - do not forget to write this and that, refer to this, insert such a picture from there ... Well at least that's what happens to me. :) Thus, at this stage, the document is not the final document itself, but rather its foundation, skeleton and workspace at the same time. In this space we are constantly working, correcting it, filling it with content, i.e. We perform an iterative process of filling and forming a document.
Obviously, this process can be easily shifted to mental maps, where the structure of the document (its sections) are formed as map nodes, with its own hierarchy, and notes, notes, ideas, pictures can also be attached to them. And this functionality is implemented by all software products for working with maps. But on this work with the card usually gradually fades - after the formation of such a skeleton of the document and its development, it is time to write the document filling itself, and the work is already being done mainly in the text editor, and there are fewer reasons to turn to the map. Again, at least with me. :)
Recently, I tried to look at this process differently, from the point of view of the layout designer (as I imagine it) - the person who assembles the final presentation, for example, of a newspaper page consisting of articles. For him, the workspace is a piece of paper on which he places blocks of text and graphics. In the same way, you can imagine our document skeleton - with the same workspace, with blocks of text as filling sections, and it would be nice to fill the document, up to its final version, without leaving this space - right in the same program.
How do I imagine this process? In principle, this is the same work with the mental map, the skeleton of the document, but additionally the texts of sections of this document, its content are attached to the nodes of this skeleton.
Let's take the steps:
1) Create a document skeleton, along with section nodes, notes, notes, and other useful features that allow modern programs for working with maps (up to tasks in an outluk). This is our workspace, our document.
2) We proceed to its content - we write the text to each node (section), directly in the same program, with all the necessary capabilities for formatting, inserting images, links to other sections in the form of links to map nodes, inserting notes.
3) After filling - the assembly of the document into a single file (for example, Word), with automatic numbering of headings, with the application of a single style to the document, with automatic placement and design of links, notes.
4) Editing a document — is done in the same space — we edit not the result of the assembly of the document, but the contents of the map nodes in our workspace. At the same time, there should be the possibility of joint editing, insertion of comments, reviewing ... This also includes the possibility of version control - in general, everything that modern word-text editors can do with documents.
5) Final assembly of the document.
Such a script can be partially implemented in the same Mind Manager - it allows you to attach documents to the nodes and, in general, any files. But that's all - it does not work with a set of investments as with a single document, but I want exactly this! It is necessary to manually transfer the contents of attachments to one document, and work already in a text editor, as usual. The same thing, in my opinion, in XMind ...
I hope I managed to bring the main idea - how I would like to work when writing documents. In this case, the map is not just a tool for creating a skeleton of a document and fixing thoughts on it, but also a full-fledged working environment, which as a result allows to get a finished document as a result. In such an instrument, the mental map is an inseparable part of the document itself; document as an entity (not a final compilation in the form of text on the pages).
The fantasy cleared up - such a software product could provide a template in which nodes with the table of contents of the document would be automatically formed, sections were easily rearranged in the right places ... In general, the software for working with maps focused and tailored to the development of documents. A kind of hybrid Mind Manager and Word. :)
So, I have questions to the respected community:
1) Does anyone write documents in this way? :)
2) Are there ready-made software products that allow to implement such a scenario?
3) Or maybe someone uses the same Mind Manager, XMind in a similar way? I would like to know more ...
4) Can TeX products do something like that? Or somehow they can be used for this business?
5) If there are no such products - maybe this is a good topic for developing such a product? I would love to take part ... :)
Thanks for attention!
UPD The topic was moved from the sandbox. Thanks to VlK user for invite!
About Mind Maps (mental maps) know, probably, many.
I first became interested in this way of presenting information quite recently, about 2 years ago - I attracted a clear and detailed structured information while at the same time allowing a wide coverage of the whole picture. It seems to me that it is this need - in structuredness and simultaneous wide coverage - that we meet at meetings, or in the process of thinking over ideas, brainstorming, etc., when we draw all sorts of schemes, trees, and other pictures with a pencil on paper, allowing only one look at them to recall in detail the entire conversation and the main key ideas. And mental maps are just another methodology, a technology in the construction of such pictures, and, in my opinion, very successful.
')
I don’t set my goal now to describe in detail what these cards give, how to build them, how to read them, and so on - an interested person can easily find a large amount of relevant information, since this topic is booming, and I’m not that experienced this business. Let me just say that I applied them in such tasks and processes as brainstorming, fixing the course of meetings and conclusions, planning (including financial), note taking lectures, and, finally, the process of creating documents.
Here is the latest application and will be discussed.
Developing a large enough technical document (project concept, technical task, etc.), we start working out the basic skeleton of the document at the very beginning - its main idea is what sections it will have, we outline what will be in these sections. In addition, at this stage, any ideas arise, usually in a crowd and chaotically, and we fix these ideas in the document itself, in the form of temporary records - do not forget to write this and that, refer to this, insert such a picture from there ... Well at least that's what happens to me. :) Thus, at this stage, the document is not the final document itself, but rather its foundation, skeleton and workspace at the same time. In this space we are constantly working, correcting it, filling it with content, i.e. We perform an iterative process of filling and forming a document.
Obviously, this process can be easily shifted to mental maps, where the structure of the document (its sections) are formed as map nodes, with its own hierarchy, and notes, notes, ideas, pictures can also be attached to them. And this functionality is implemented by all software products for working with maps. But on this work with the card usually gradually fades - after the formation of such a skeleton of the document and its development, it is time to write the document filling itself, and the work is already being done mainly in the text editor, and there are fewer reasons to turn to the map. Again, at least with me. :)
Recently, I tried to look at this process differently, from the point of view of the layout designer (as I imagine it) - the person who assembles the final presentation, for example, of a newspaper page consisting of articles. For him, the workspace is a piece of paper on which he places blocks of text and graphics. In the same way, you can imagine our document skeleton - with the same workspace, with blocks of text as filling sections, and it would be nice to fill the document, up to its final version, without leaving this space - right in the same program.
How do I imagine this process? In principle, this is the same work with the mental map, the skeleton of the document, but additionally the texts of sections of this document, its content are attached to the nodes of this skeleton.
Let's take the steps:
1) Create a document skeleton, along with section nodes, notes, notes, and other useful features that allow modern programs for working with maps (up to tasks in an outluk). This is our workspace, our document.
2) We proceed to its content - we write the text to each node (section), directly in the same program, with all the necessary capabilities for formatting, inserting images, links to other sections in the form of links to map nodes, inserting notes.
3) After filling - the assembly of the document into a single file (for example, Word), with automatic numbering of headings, with the application of a single style to the document, with automatic placement and design of links, notes.
4) Editing a document — is done in the same space — we edit not the result of the assembly of the document, but the contents of the map nodes in our workspace. At the same time, there should be the possibility of joint editing, insertion of comments, reviewing ... This also includes the possibility of version control - in general, everything that modern word-text editors can do with documents.
5) Final assembly of the document.
Such a script can be partially implemented in the same Mind Manager - it allows you to attach documents to the nodes and, in general, any files. But that's all - it does not work with a set of investments as with a single document, but I want exactly this! It is necessary to manually transfer the contents of attachments to one document, and work already in a text editor, as usual. The same thing, in my opinion, in XMind ...
I hope I managed to bring the main idea - how I would like to work when writing documents. In this case, the map is not just a tool for creating a skeleton of a document and fixing thoughts on it, but also a full-fledged working environment, which as a result allows to get a finished document as a result. In such an instrument, the mental map is an inseparable part of the document itself; document as an entity (not a final compilation in the form of text on the pages).
The fantasy cleared up - such a software product could provide a template in which nodes with the table of contents of the document would be automatically formed, sections were easily rearranged in the right places ... In general, the software for working with maps focused and tailored to the development of documents. A kind of hybrid Mind Manager and Word. :)
So, I have questions to the respected community:
1) Does anyone write documents in this way? :)
2) Are there ready-made software products that allow to implement such a scenario?
3) Or maybe someone uses the same Mind Manager, XMind in a similar way? I would like to know more ...
4) Can TeX products do something like that? Or somehow they can be used for this business?
5) If there are no such products - maybe this is a good topic for developing such a product? I would love to take part ... :)
Thanks for attention!
UPD The topic was moved from the sandbox. Thanks to VlK user for invite!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/66010/
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