7 Plan Mapping

Plan mapping is like mind mapping except that it occurs after brainstorming to help us organize our ideas. It helps us decide what the thesis statement, topic sentences, and supporting sentences of our essays will be.

Let’s look at our list about being a good boss and then look at an example of a plan map.

Each highlighted heading in the list above could be a topic sentence. Each of the smaller ideas in each group could be a supporting sentence. However, we can only choose two topic sentences and 4 supporting sentences.  This is because we write two body paragraphs in our essays, with 2 supporting sentences in each one. So, we cannot use all of the ideas in our brainstorming. There is not enough room!

Look at the planning map below and think about which ideas we included and which ideas from the list we did not include.

Planning Map:

Compare the organized brainstorming list and the plan map. You can see that we used only some of our ideas from brainstorming.

I decided to make the categories of “generous” and “responsible” my topic sentence ideas. I decided on these two ideas because I felt that I had the most knowledge of and passion for these ideas. It is up to your judgment to decide which ideas are best for your essay. Only pick ideas that you really like!

Now, let’s look at the thesis statement: “The qualities of a good boss are being generous and responsible.” Do you see how the thesis just includes the two topic sentence ideas? It is important that we have some repetition in our essay so that everyone can understand.

Now, let’s look at the supporting sentences. Remember that supporting sentences are smaller ideas about each topic sentence. For example, “gives insurance” and “gives bonuses” are both related to being generous. Being “on time” and being “honest” are both related to being responsible. How did I decide which supporting sentences to use? I just looked at the topic sentence categories and decided which ideas I felt most passionate about.

Let’s look at another example. In this case, we will be using a mind map to create a plan map.

As you can see, we used the same process here, but I chose different ideas. Our topic sentence ideas are from the more general ideas that are closest to the center of the mind map. I chose “intelligent” and “fun.” The thesis statement just summarizes the two topic sentence ideas: “The qualities of a good boss are being intelligent and fun.”

Finally, I chose the supporting sentence ideas from the details at the edge of the map. I chose “knowledgable” and “creative” for my specific ideas about being intelligent. I chose “give parties” and “sense of humor” for my specific ideas about being fun.