Tech Comm Student

And perhaps more importantly, how can you benefits from using one?

Have you ever had a teacher stand up in front of the chalk board and just write the ideas of their students? Or maybe you’ve watched as co-workers used sticky notes for idea generation, or family members who jotted notes into their notepads.

Use Mind Maps For Creative Brainstorming

I was introduced to mind mapping software through a recommendation from a student in my technical documents and procedures class a few weeks ago. Her specific recommendation was for the VUE: Visual Understanding Environment… and after playing around with some of the other free mind map software, I have to support that recommendation!

If you’re tired of having to deal with all your scribbled-on paper, use VUE to keep your thoughts organized. VUE is extremely easy to use, and it looks great too. A few days ago I felt ready to begin thinking about a few new web projects. Take a look at my most recent brainstorming session.

You can use this program for recording just about any set of creative thought processes. Technical communicators can especially benefit during the prewriting stage of document writing. While most people use lists to hold their ideas, lists do not easy adapt to a branching, creative mindset. using a list instead of a mind map could mean the omission of important considerations if one is not careful.

Some of the other free programs I examined include: Xmind and FreeMind.