{"id":6186,"date":"2017-12-07T09:25:53","date_gmt":"2017-12-06T20:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/?p=6186"},"modified":"2017-12-07T11:21:09","modified_gmt":"2017-12-06T22:21:09","slug":"throwback-thursday-creating-visual-maps-diagrams-and-models","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/?p=6186","title":{"rendered":"Throwback Thursday: Creating visual maps, diagrams and models"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post by Dr Lyn Lavery, Director of Academic Consulting<\/a>, first appeared on Thesislink in June 2014. <\/em><\/p>\n

A recent post on the NVivo blog reminded me of how useful I find models, diagrams, and visual maps in my research and writing. They assist my planning and thinking, and are great presentation tools for research data. To read the original NVivo blog post, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"mindmap1\"<\/a>The NVivo modeller is a useful tool, and the above blog post has some good suggestions for how to use it in a qualitative project. If you\u2019re not planning on using NVivo for your data analysis however, it\u2019s probably not worth learning it just for the purposes of using the modeller. So, what other options are available to you for creating visual maps, diagrams, and models?<\/p>\n

My personal choice is Inspiration<\/a>\u2013I\u2019ve been using this for years, and have just started using the iPad version also. Inspiration has tools for concept mapping, mind mapping, and outlining\u2013all of which are useful at various stages of the research process. \u00a0It is incredibly intuitive and easy to learn, and is relatively cheap for a package of this type\u2013there is also a free trial available. Over the years I\u2019ve used Inspiration for a number of tasks including:<\/p>\n