Mapping a book or a lecture

Case 1: a book, structure known in advance

This is the easy case: the table of contents gives you the structure.

1. Before reading: draw the centre, title and image, and the main branches from the table of contents. An important chapter becomes a branch; group the minor chapters together.
2. Add your priming questions as dotted lines. They will be erased or turned into answers.
3. Read a whole chapter without writing, marking the important passages with a cross.
4. With the book closed, fill the branch from memory. That active recall is what produces retention.
5. Reopen at the crosses and complete what was missing, in another colour. The colour shows you exactly what you had not retained, which is very useful information for revision.

Volume rule: one page per book. Not one page per chapter. The constraint forces synthesis, which is the real intellectual work.

Case 2: a lecture or a talk, structure discovered live

Much harder: you do not know where the speaker is going.