Use Both Sides of Your Brain: New Mind-Mapping Techniques, Third Edition (Plume)

This is a good book to introduce you to how your brain works but it doesn't go into great depth. If this is your first read on the subject then I highly recommend it.

I found Tony Buzan's book to be priceless. I first started using mind mapping during my sophomore year of college - I am now graduating. I found that studying and remembering what I studied were much easier, and being able to see how everything was interrelated and connected made college much easier.

I even used mind maps for writing essays and large term papers. I found that this made for a good outline. It really helps in writing to organize your thoughts and know where to go.

I am going to give his "Mind Maps at Work" a try and see how well it can be used for everyday on the job situations. I would recommend this book to anyone, it is easy to learn and can be mastered with a minimal amount of effort. I would also recommend adding A LOT of color to your mind maps.

This book is fantastic. I have started to use it with my children to help them be more successful in school. The concepts on learning are unbelievable - where was this stuff when I was growing up? Well worth the cost from the information you gain on how to learn more efficiently. Can't wait to buy his book on memory.

In the State of Texas, there is a comprehensive exam to become a certified school teacher. It's in two parts, given at different times of the semester.

Thanks to Buzan's ideas, I managed to pass both parts of the exam the first time. I used mind maps, memorization techniques he presented and in general, studied extensively. To be sure, I modified his techniques to fit my own style, but it worked. Mind mapping and mnemonics make good partners!

As with many other study techniques, it is still a lot of work and requires effort, and sometimes you'll have to make time to study when you'd rather do something else. In other words, you'll still need self discipline. But in my opininon, it makes the time studying a lot more fun.

Your mind maps don't have to be great works of art -- and they can be revised -- in fact, the process will help you remember better.

It's possible to do well and pass -- even ace -- tests without these techniques. But if you want something that will make the process more fun and probably more efficient, then this is the book for you.

Tony Buzan is not an expert in brain science, nor is he an originator. This is evident in the "facts" he gives to explain how the brain/mind works. The info given is old pseudoscience about the mind, adapted from the extreme views of Sperry, amongst other speculative writers of the 1970s. But I know why Tony Buzan hasn't updated the information to include all the studies that show; mind mapping does not work to any significant level, it is not adopted to any significant level by students, it does not balance the brain any more than other types of note making, and it certainly does not make you smarter.

The reason for this persistent adherence to old and debunked pseudoscience, is that it sells books. Some common mind myths include; You use less than 1% of your brain, the brain is seperated into specific left/right skills, creativity can be increased easily using simple techniques, and just imagining something will bring it to pass in reality. These have all been debunked in the latter part of the 1970s.

The techniques given in the book are extremely limited in comparison with the strategies given in other less glitzy study method/ learning books. That is good enough reason not to buy the book. But the principles given that dictate the use of techniques are so nonsensical compared to more recent science, that they can only be thought of as sales pitch, or an effort to sell other books by the same author.

Mind mapping is a very feable technique compared to other graphic organizers (eg the concept map). Speed reading is so misleading that it tends to result in very successful deception litigation. They have both been debunked on several occasions.

Find a study method book that doesn't just stroke the ego. Probably any book on study techniques will give better methods without setting you up for anticlimax.

G.Gladstone