Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ PhotoReading, Memory Optimizer mind mapping/superreading/rapid reading

to my understanding rapid reading is jst superreading+ dipping the whole book from start to finish, but dont you miss valuable details and the fun backstories and more enjoyable parts of the text. Sure you get the meat faster but without the enjoyment you normally would experience. I just got into the tape on mindmapping and i really dont like it at all. it seams disorganized and an insult to my intelligence. i have been very open minded through this course but mind mapping seems like a waste. Has anyone found signifcant value in it as an activation method?
What is the final goal one should have when photoreading? Rapid reading seems to be just advanced skimming. and when in comes down to it on reflection i feel that the photoreading step is more of a placibo to get you to rapidread-which i think means to super read the book and get the facts without the fun. I can see how this will benefit me in school, but it seems to decapitate the fun books and novels. Is the goal of the course to eventually spontaneously activate after reading books, and not to need to manually activate?
well i guess i can really use feedback and would appreciate any help and suggestions

I don't know what to say with your other questions, but I can tell you that mindmapping is VERY, VERY effective. This has been proven with studies that are independent of Learning Strategies. It's like creating a piece of artwork, and you visually remember it better because you see the big picture of how everything is related, and you also have a personal connectino with it (since it's your artwork). The personal connection allows you to remember it more easily. The brain actually works like a mindmap, with branching, inter-related ideas. Many psychology classes explain this. I can tell you from personal experience that the night before a very difficult exam, my friend and I were drawing mindmaps like crazy of everything that was covered in class, over and over. By teh end of the night, we knew the material so well that we ended up having the highest scores in a class of 300 students.

I was very sceptical about minmapping in the beginning, but now I have found out that it is a very efficinet way to open the channel to your other than conscious mind.

I use it this way: before reading, activating, photoreading or whatever step I'm doing, I create a very quick mindmap of the things that are important to me at that moment, of course concerning the subject to be read. I don't care if seemingly irrelevant words appear, I write them on the mindmap anyway. AND: I do it very quickly!

After doing this I am much more focused on the subject and understand more.

well im glad to hear its a valid method, can anyone please give me some tips- mind mapping sounds disorganized and confusing.

Try this link:
http://www.thinksmart.com/mission/workout/mindmapping_intro.html

An important thing to remember is that a mind map isn't just notes in a different format. It's a different way of organizing your thoughts that allows you to show relationships between ideas. You aren't trying to jam whole sentences onto lines, just key elements that give your brain something to go on to retrieve the rest of the information.

As an example, I received an Excel spreadsheet from a client that had a list of concerns that were categorized. It was a lot to read. I made a mind map with the client name in the center. Each category became a branch off of that. Each concern became a branch off the appropriate category. Now, I could look at the mind map and quickly see patterns and relationships that just aren't evident with a long text listing.

With activation, the value of a mind map is that it serves as a way to pull photoread information out of your brain. Place a trigger word as a branch off the central topic. Start asking yourself about that trigger word. What does it mean? Why is it important? Then, when you super read and dip, you have a specific goal and you can quickly find the related information for that trigger word. Those related key words become a branch off that trigger. Soon, you have a mind map that is like a Cliff Note's for the book, except it is your own version with only the information that is relevant to you.

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Originally posted by Boylanpower:
well im glad to hear its a valid method, can anyone please give me some tips- mind mapping sounds disorganized and confusing.

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After reading these posts, it’s really got me thinking.

So far I have had great success with the PR system, however I’ve accomplished the success without mindmapping. To me, it seemed like a waste of valuable time, considering I am having good luck, previewing, PR’ing, superreading and skittering.

I have had really good luck with comprehension, but more comprehension could never hurt anyone.

Reading mgrego2’s post, seemed to make perfect sense, telling me I could be getting not only better comprehension, but also quicker and better activation. I’m going to check out the web sight listed in the post and review the PR book. I kind of skipped over the mindmap section, thinking it was something that I really didn’t need.

Considering the effectiveness of the system so far, add the mindmapping and I should be in good shape (flying faster……r.r.r.r…!!).

Thanks for the advise and you gotta love this forum.

Yeah, I'm gonna admit that I don't really mindmap, either.

I use mindmaps, and have had great success with them, but I don't really use them for PRing, since I'm doing okay without them. I read the Buzan book and everything, and mindmaps are great (so is his approach to studying in general) but since most of my material is rapid read (novels for lit classes) I just drop it at that.

So the skeleton in my closet is out =)

-Ramon http://razor.ramon.com