Bubble Networks
This is the non-linear, organic counterpart to the hierarchical outline. Each topic can connect to any other, and the role of categories becomes as great or as little as you need it to be. Bubbles can be worked with in a controlled way, a little like a branching tree (or maybe a budding yeast?); this is often helpful in setting up an outline or an organized paper.
At other times, it can be helpful and/or inspiring to get a holistic sense of what you are doing. Here is a bubble network derived from the brainstorm list that started the outline for this Resource Guide. Click on it to see the full image. If you are reading the printed version, look on the page after this section.
Workshop Discussion Sparks
- Advantages and limitations of bubbles (organicity & holism vs. nebulousness & visual confusion)
Inspired and Creative
- Do a network of all the things in the Goals Statement part of your Learning Plan. Your goals and projects connect through you, at least, and often directly to each other as well.
Rigorous Training
- Do some practice networks sort of on the level of a brainstorm. Pick a word or idea and write it in a circle. Then connect it to the first thing you think of that has something to do with it. Keep going, adding more connections as you think of them.
AAAAAGGGHHHH!
- It can sometimes be difficult to put a bubble network to use once you have one. One hint is to look and see which bubbles have the most lines coming out of them. There is a fair chance (but no guarantee) that these are the topics that would be the main focuses/categories in an essay or outline.
See Also
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