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Summary: Once Again, the Old Dog Learns a Few New Tricks
Review: I have used the techniques of mind mapping for almost three decades to help me organize my thoughts, explore complex issues or simply map a course of action. I have found them to be a useful, helpful and insightful.I recently purchase a software program which enables me to bring my techniques to the digital age. As I started to work with the program, I discovered it did not readily adapt my style; so this is the book I selected to teach the old dog - me - some new tricks. I did not need to be convinced of the technique's utility; I really did not need the review of the literature. After years of successful use, I was not about to abandon the technique. However, there was a lot I could learn and the book presented those lessons in a clear, highly structured and easy-to-absorb fashion. After a few hours, I was preparing my maps with my new software as quickly as I previously had with my pad and pencil. Only now, they are colorful, illustrated and more conducive to creative thoughts. For me, this book was worth its cost.
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Summary: Making Full Use of Your Brain, especially Visual Cortex
Review: "..half of the human brain is devoted directly or indirectly to vision.." said Professor Mriganka Sur of MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
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In this book, Tony Buzan convincingly argues for the importance of Mind Mapping--a method of recording and organizaing information based on the nature of human brains. After reading this book and experimenting with Mind Mapping myself, I do believe that our usual writing system does not enable our brains to function effectively and Mind Mapping is a major improvement over it. Mind Mapping is based on a few basic principles summarized as follows:
* Represent concepts with keywords
* Make associations
* Organize into hierarchy
* Visualize concepts using images
* Stimulate your brain with colors and symbols
* Order and emphasize according to importance The major benefits from the use of Mind Maps are:
* Images, colors, and associations stimulates creative thinking.
* Mind Mapping forces you to think actively about the things you learn.
* Efficiency in making/taking notes.
* Learning is simply more fun! The latter part of the book suggests many uses of Mind Maps: writing a personal diary, sharing stories within a family, thinking, teaching, making notes, presenting a lecture, and collaborating in a professional environment. For example, Boeing created a 25-foot long Mind Map summarizing an aircraft engineering manual, which helped save millions of dollars worth of staff time. Tony's writing is lucid and the presentation of the book is excellent. I found the colorful examples given throughout the book especially inspiring and useful. The only complaints I have would be frequent repetition of information and sometimes excessive claims of the power of our brains without solid scientific proofs. These will however likely to have positive impacts on the readers, that is, help them think more positively about their own capability and strengthening the message that the book wants to deliver. So you can think of them as features or defects depending on your personal preferences. Given the amount and complexity of information we need to deal with in the modern world, Mind Mapping is a very valuable tool everyone needs to possess. The benefits far outweigh the cost of learning it.
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Summary: A colorful, detailed introduction
Review: A wonderful introduction to the techniques and applications of Mind Mapping. This book uses lots of illustrations and examples, many in color, to represent Mind Mapping as a natural--even organic--technique for accessing our human creativity. Chapters 10 and 11 go into terrific detail about the Guiding Principles of Mind Mapping and the importance of developing your own Mind Mapping style. If you buy just one book on the topic, this should be it. Although Tony Buzan has trademarked Mind Mapping® and made an industry out of it, this book has less (though some) of the infomercial-like enthusiasm of his "Use Both Sides of Your Brain."
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Summary: Silly
Review: This is a silly, superficial books that is nothing more than a rehash of his earlier writings. Do not like lazy authors who keep churning out the same old stuff over and over. It would seem that they would learn new things, new thougts, new insights over time. Guess not.
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Summary: Why did my method of learning always take too long!
Review: What a fantastic book. Why don't we learn this kind of stuff at school? The book really gives the reader an understanding what your brain finds interesting! Reading a book or taking copious notes as I always suspected is not what our brains are good at. After having used some of the techniques Tony develops in the book I have leapt forward in terms of how much information I can remember and also how I can apply that information in new creative ways. Again I can only say fasinating - buy it. It could be the best buy you have had in a long time.
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Summary: For the Frustrated Learner-Thinker
Review: I highly recommend this book with anyone interested in learning how to learn and creativity. I wish I had been taught this learning, creativity, and mnemonic strategy long before high school and college. It shows how to make learning fun and rewarding by using Mind Maps to express our thoughts and ideas by working congenially with the natural architecture of our brains. Applied correctly, understanding radiant thinking and mind maps will considerably boost your reading comprehension, analytical skills, creativity, and recall of subjects focused on. I also recommend this book to anyone interested in metamemory, metacognition, and learning to learn. Many of the concepts discussed in the book are backed by studies in cognitive psychology and the workings of the brain.
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Summary: Mind Maps??
Review: I had never heard of Mind Maps, so I can't tell you if this book repeated information found in previous ones by the same author; frankly, I don't care. What I do care about is rapidly absorbing information, which this book teaches you to do. The authors have spent most of their lives researching the techniques taught in this book. It's packed with great info, and the studies to back it. The book is even laid out so you can easily Mind Map it for practice and reference. It's been a few weeks now since I've read this book, and even with the few Mind Maps I have done, I've been able to remember more, review faster, and have more fun studying. I'm thinking of buying more copies to give to friends... this book is a must. Buy it (or flip through it at the store until you're convinced)... you won't regret it.
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Summary: GC Uof R Satire Review
Review: RIVERO, Albert, J. (Ed.) Gulliver's Travels Jonothan Swift. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002. IBSN 0-393-95724-1 (pbk) Besides Gulliver's Travels itself, there are the letters from Gulliver to his cousin Sympson, Swift's letters, Pope's verse on Gulliver's Travels. Included is an assortment of 18th Century commentary by Swift's contemporaries such as Edmund Curll (a dodgy book seller), the Scribler's Club, and Samuel Sturmy (Mariner's Magazine). Modern criticism ranges from gender and racism to situational ethics to scathing essays about Gulliver's Travels by the Earl of Orrey and Sir Walter Scott.
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Summary: GC Uof R Satire Review
Review: SMITH, Frederik, N. The Genres of Gulliver's Travel. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1990. IBSN 0-87413-359-9 --- This is a series of articles looking at Guliver's Travel as travel trips. Excitement in foreign lands, as a children's book, as the travel novel, and as illustration. As well as a pictureque travel novel, Gulliver's Travels is discussed as the beginning of science fiction as well as satire in the historical and political sense. For a post-modern analysis there is also a deconstructionist approach.
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Summary: GC Uof R Satire Review
Review: SEIDEL, Michael. Satiric Inheritance - Rabelais to Sterne. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978. This is an excellent review of satire from Juvenal, Pope, Dryden, and Swift. From discussing Plato's Symposium to Milton to Rabelias' Gargantua, Seidel examines satire as romance, as a narrative mode, and as political platforms. For the student of satire, this book will give a deep understanding of the how, why's, and wherefores of satire. My favorite.
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