19 themselves both verbally and visually. Therefore, when learners use the mind
map, they may use graphic representation which may help in the brainstorming process. Brainstorming process helps the students to think although they do not
have any ideas in their mind. The students or writers only need to write down all of things in their mind without thinking about the text organization until their
creativity has found. By using brainstorming process, writer can find the most appropriate ideas to be used in the mind mapping.
McGriff 2007 also finds that relating images to concepts is a creative task which requires thinking instead of memorizing. Adam and Mowers 2007, in a
recent study, show that students who could express their learning with visual skills had a 40 higher retention rate than that of just verbal learners. This study
shows that the use of mind mapping technique is a useful strategy to support students during writing tasks. Moreover, a study by Toi 2000 has a clear
explanation about the use of mind mapping in increasing students‟ writing skill. Toi in his study found that the application of mind mapping in planning is a useful
writing strategy that can improve students‟ writing skill. Therefore, the researcher used the mind mapping as the technique to increase students‟ ability in organizing
ideas and also their writing skill.
b. Types of Mind Mapping
According to Buzan 2006, mind mapping can be divided into two types, namely hand-drawn mind maps and mind mapping software. The hand-drawn
mind maps are the mind mapping which is drawn by someone with their own hands while mind mapping software is mind mapping which is drawn in a
20 computer software. Both types of mind mapping can help someone to organize
their ideas. The explanations below are the examples of those two types of mind mapping.
1 Mind mapping software
Tonny and Buzan 2003 state that mind mapping software or usually called as
computer mind mapping is the „digital link‟ that allows people to input the data directory via the computer screen with a digital pen. This new software
offers significant improvements in personal productivity in the areas of automatic mind map generation, editing, analyzing, creating different views of mind
mapping in the form of computer software. The example of mind mapping
software of computer mind mapping is presented in Figure 2.2.
Figure 2.2:
Example
of Software Mind Mapping
2 Hand-Writing Mind Maps
Hand-writing mind maps provide something different with the software or computer mind mapping. Buzan 1993 states that hand-writing mind maps
become the traditional mind mapping technique. In hand-writing mind maps, the writers are asked to make their own mind mapping with their imagination and
21 creativity. The writer will draw the mind mapping with their own hands. This
hand-writing mind maps give a free decision to the writers to make their mind mapping as interesting as they want. It means that each writer will produce
different types of hand-writing. The example of hand-writing mind maps is presented in Figure 2.3.
Figure 2.3: Example of Hand-writing Mind Mapping
c. Benefits of Mind Mapping
The benefits of mind mapping have been discussed by several writers; McGriff 2000, Buzan 2007, and Edward 2011. They believe that mind
mapping can balance the brain, help to organize thoughts, and improve the creativity, speed of learning, and memory. According to Buzan 1993 besides
helping someone in organizing their ideas, there are several other benefits that can
22 be found from using mind mapping. The benefits of mind mapping are presented
as follows. 1
Someone can easily add some ideas in the mind mapping or add another link that related to the mind topic in a mind mapping
2 Mind mapping can help someone to concentrate on the information structure
and relationship among the ideas. 3
By using the mind mapping, someone can really see the connections and similarities in the information
5. Descriptive Text
