Mind Mapping

I've been a long term 'fan' of mind-mapping. I was first introduced to it as a teenager - and have found it very useful throughout my career, first as a student, then as an academic (and also for dealing with the masses of information I was using as a parliamentary candidate). As with any system - it is good to adapt to your own style and strengths. My problem is that I am useless at drawing (I know there are those who claim that anyone can be taught to draw, but is beyond me - I couldn't draw to save my life!). That has meant that I lost one of the advantages of mind-mapping - which is to use all the senses. My "mind-maps" were closer to "spidergrams" - sometimes I used colour - but essentially I used two dimensional diagrams, without drawings. However it has assisted me in studying; writing essays and preparing presentations and speeches. Most of all - it has helped when I prepared for exams.

Tony Buzan, a key developer and populariser of Mind Maps has gone hi-tech  Now I can do it on screen - I have MindMaps loaded on my home PC and on my iPad.

It may work for you - it may not. Each of us has our own learning style. For me it works - and works VERY well. I'm not good at remembering masses of information (and getting worse as I get older). But organising related information by drawing mind maps is a great help. I also find it an invaluable "thinking device".

Previously, I found them most useful for exam revision - thankfully I'm not facing any exams in the near future - but if you are - or you have a friend who is - then it's worth considering whether Mind Maps can help.

If you want further information - press here. It tells you something about the products available. 

But you can do them with pen (though pencil works best) and paper. The link is that you see the relationships between ideas. You can link key ideas in an argument by linking 'clouds' containing the key ideas together in a chain. You can develop different levels of mind maps - for example

* What is needed for a successful Judicial review claim;
* the elements of a specific offence (Actus Reus, Mens Rea and Defences);
* or the key facts of a particular case.

Why not try to list some topics you could prepare mind maps for?

Separation of Powers

A key concept in Constitutional Law - and not just for those countries that have the concept at the heart of their constitutional structure.

In the USA powers are expressly allocated to the Executive; and others allocated to Congress (the Legislature) and to the Supreme Court. Article I Section 6 concludes "No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emouluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office."

Similarly, in France - Article 23 states "Membership of the Government shall be incompatible with the holding of any Parliamentary office..."

According to the House of Commons Library "In the UK, in theory a minister does not have to be a member of either House of Parliament.  In practice, however, convention is that ministers must be members of either the House of Commons or House of Lords in order to be accountable to Parliament. From time to time, Prime Ministers appoint non-parliamentarians as ministers. In recent years such ministers have been appointed to the House of Lords." The rational is that "for parliamentary scrutiny to work ministers must have a seat in either chamber."

The key points to remember about the doctrine are

• It's origins - the classification of government powers into Legislative; Executive and Judicial goes back to Aristotle [The Politics]. Montesquieu stressed that "when the legislative powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty...Again, there is no liberty if the power of judging is not separated from the legislative and executive." and

• that the modern interpretation of the doctrine is that a person should not hold power in more than one of the branches of government (compare the US, France and UK)
• that the objective is to create countervailing governmental power centres which check and balance each other and thereby inhibit the abuse of power.
• what the principal institutions are of the Executive; Legislature and Judiciary
• its impacts on
• the Executive and the Legislature
• the Executive and the Judiciary
• the Judiciary and the Legislature

(it may be helpful to think of a triangle and link to each side the main rules)

• How the rules have changed in recent years - in the UK it is important to note
• Art 6 ECHR
• Constitutional Reform Act 2005
• creation of the Judicial Appointments Commission
• development of 'Judicial Review'
• Human Rights Act 1998
• House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975
• the sub judice rules of both Houses of Parliament (Commons; Lords)
• How it relates to other key doctrines - the Rule of Law; the Supremacy of Parliament; the doctrine of Ministerial Responsibility.

When it comes to exams - the most common problem is failure to answer the question properly. Don't answer a question about 'separation of powers' with "everything you know about SoP" - because questions often focus on the relationships between particular branches - and ask you to evaluate the level of separation in practice.

You may also find the post and mindmap in an earlier post on Separation of Powers useful. It can be accessed here.

There are some excellent explanations and diagrams in the book below

W200 Revision

A starting point in revision is to identify the key topics that need to be covered. Below is a MindMap illustrating the key parts of the W200 Understanding Law course. Unit 8, on Scottish Law is not examinable - so I haven't incorporated it.

Once you can visualise the structure of the course - the next task is to draw out the key issues within each major subject. The way that the manuals are structured helps you do that.

For Example - Units One and Two make up "Introduction to Law
1 Introduction and what is law
2 Terminology and sources of Law

Each unit is subdivided - Unit One -
A General Introduction to the course - no need to revise this
B What is Law?
C The Functions of Law

Note the key themes and further divisions - B1, B2, B3.....
You might want to draw your own MindMap for each Subject and/or Unit.
Briefly summarise the key points as you revise - this involves condensing the information.

Revision Planning Tool

If you are thinking about planning your revision, below is a model mind map which might help you plan for the weeks approaching an exam. It has 6 weeks on it - so you can either use it for 6 weeks, leaving time for another period of planned revision or add extra branches for the extra weeks.

The idea is to set topics for each week, and then further break down the week into daily tasks (making allowance for the likely demands on your time - days/evenings when you won't be able to revise - or days especially set aside)

The MindMap below can then serve as a template for your own planning Mind Map (which can be hand drawn - or developed on a computer - for more details go here.