A concept map is a diagram of ideas joined by labeled lines that say how each idea relates to the next. For studying, it works best when you build it from memory, check it against your notes, and then quiz yourself on it. This guide shows you how to make one, what it looks like in different subjects, and how to combine it with the study methods that research ranks highest.
TL;DR
- A concept map puts key ideas in boxes and labels the links between them, so you see how a topic fits together instead of reading it as a flat list.
- Draw the first version from memory, then fill gaps from your lecture notes and textbook. The gaps show you what to study.
- In controlled experiments at Purdue, retrieval practice beat concept mapping on a delayed test, so use the map to organize and then test yourself on it.
- Aim for about ten to twenty key concepts per map, ranked from broad to specific, with every line labeled.
- Incremental reading and concept maps can share one routine: read in small pieces, extract key points, then map how they connect.
Table of Contents
- What a concept map is and why students use it
- What the research says: map, then retrieve
- How to make a concept map, step by step
- When to use a map: before, during, and after
- Concept map examples for studying
- Can ChatGPT make a concept map?
- Incremental reading and concept maps
- Our perspective
- Turn your materials into a map-ready study set
- FAQ
- Sources
What a concept map is and why students use it
A concept map shows how ideas, events, or concepts connect to each other. Rutgers' Learning Centers list uses such as seeing the big picture of a topic, tracking cause and effect, spotting patterns and themes, and organizing ideas before you write a paper or take a test.
The case for mapping is about structure. Cornell's Learning Strategies Center describes concept maps as a tool for identifying relationships among the ideas you learn in class, and says that depicting those relationships visually can help you learn course material at a deeper level and retain it better. Stanford's Center for Teaching and Learning adds that maps break complex topics into digestible parts, clarify how ideas relate, and help you spot gaps in your knowledge.
A concept map is not the same as a pile of notes. Notes tell you what a topic contains. A map forces you to decide how the pieces connect, and that decision is where understanding happens. If you cannot write a verb or short phrase on the line between two boxes, you have found something you do not yet understand.
A related tool is the study guide. Utah State University's academic support page says study guides organize lecture notes and textbook material so you can understand and remember large amounts of information, and that visual versions are even more effective because they help you see related concepts and make meaningful connections. A concept map is one of the most useful visual formats for that job.
What the research says: map, then retrieve
Mapping helps you organize. It is not the strongest way to lock information in memory, and knowing the difference tells you how to use it.
In a well-known 2011 experiment by Karpicke and Blunt, students read a 276-word passage about sea otters and studied it in one of four ways. On a test one week later, the What Works Clearinghouse review reports that students who used retrieval practice got 67% correct. Students who made concept maps got 45%, students who studied the passage repeatedly got 49%, and students who studied it once got 27%. The New York Times covered the study when it appeared in Science, reporting that recall-based testing led to about 50 percent more retained information a week later than two other study methods.
The follow-up work is more useful for how you map. Blunt and Karpicke (2014) found that retrieval practice in two formats, writing a paragraph or drawing a concept map from memory, both beat extra studying on a final test one week later. The two retrieval formats did not differ from each other. The benefit came from retrieving, not from the format.
Then a caution. O'Day and Karpicke (2021) found that adding concept mapping to retrieval practice gave no extra benefit over retrieval practice alone, even though students spent much more time on the materials. Mapping before practicing retrieval also impaired gains from the first recall to the second.
What this means for your routine:
- Treat the map as a retrieval exercise. Draw it without looking at your notes.
- Check it against the source afterward and fix what is missing or wrong.
- Do not spend an hour making a beautiful map and call it studying. Put that time into recalling and answering questions.
- Pair the map with questions and flashcards that make you pull facts out of memory. We cover that below, and our guide to retrieval practice strategies goes deeper.
How to make a concept map, step by step
There is no single correct method. UNC's Learning Center says there is no right or wrong way to make one, and that the key is to focus on how ideas are linked. Here is a process built from the university guides, adapted for studying.
Step 1: Gather your sources and pick a scope
Choose one chapter, one lecture, or one exam unit. A map of an entire course becomes unreadable. Pull together the headings, lecture notes, slides, and any other class material for that scope.
Step 2: Start from memory
UNC recommends starting from memory to see what you already understand, then going through notes, readings, and other resources to fill gaps. Close the book, write the main topic, and sketch whatever you can recall. This first pass is your retrieval practice.
Step 3: List the key concepts
Harvard's ABLConnect guide suggests identifying about ten to twenty key concepts from the reading or lecture. If you are unsure which terms count, our guide to identifying key concepts and our piece on key concepts and definitions show how to find them.
Step 4: Rank and place them
Put the main topic at the top center or in the middle of the page. Rank the remaining concepts from most inclusive to most specific, and cluster related ones together. Cornell's version puts one idea in a box or circle in the middle of the page and builds outward.
Step 5: Connect and label every line
This is the step that separates a concept map from a list of boxes. Cornell tells you to come up with linking terms that explain how ideas are related. Use verbs and short phrases: "causes," "is a type of," "depends on," "results in." Harvard also asks you to check for cross-links, lines between different branches, because those often show the deepest understanding.
Step 6: Rearrange until it makes sense
Cornell advises arranging and re-arranging ideas until the organization makes sense. The University of Guelph's 10-step library guide adds using colors and fonts to group concepts, including key formulas, and analyzing the finished map with specific questions, then revising as your understanding improves.
Step 7: Re-draw it without looking
Hide the finished map and draw it again, talking through each section out loud. UNC suggests elaborating each part, listing related examples, and re-creating the map without the original. Compare the two versions. Every difference is a study target. If you are working from notes you took in a professional program, the method in building a study guide from notes follows a similar build-then-revise flow.
When to use a map: before, during, and after
You can use a concept map at any point in the learning cycle, and each point does something different.
Before a lecture or reading. Try sketching what you already know. UNC suggests identifying a concept and creating a related organizer from memory. Even a wrong map is useful, because it tells you what to listen for.
During. Harvard describes this as identifying the main topic and 10 to 20 key concepts, arranging them hierarchically with labeled linking lines, and checking for cross-links. Ohio State's active reading guide suggests starting a map for complex topics with a main concept in the center and branching out to related concepts.
After. Harvard notes that constructing a map at the end of a unit is associated with higher retention than constructing it at the beginning. UNC's biology study strategies suggest drawing big-picture links between today's class and earlier ones after class, perhaps with a concept map.
A practical rhythm: a rough memory sketch before the material, notes during, and a clean from-memory map within a day of the lecture. Then move to questions and flashcards.
Concept map examples for studying
The format flexes across subjects. Stanford's examples include:
| Subject | What the map connects |
|---|---|
| Biology | Metabolic pathways or ecological systems |
| Engineering | Components of a mechanical system |
| Economics | Supply, demand, and market forces |
| Psychology | Cognitive development theories |
| Political science | Government structures |
| Philosophy | Ethical frameworks |
| Business | Corporate strategy |
Rutgers offers a history example built around the French Revolution, with nodes like the Storming of the Bastille, Robespierre on Terror, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. It also notes that maps work for science processes, literature themes, social movements, and personal goal planning.
Here is a small example you can copy for a psychology exam on memory:
- Top node: Memory
- Linked to Encoding, Storage, and Retrieval with the label "has three stages"
- Retrieval linked to Recall and Recognition with "can happen through"
- Storage linked to Short-term memory and Long-term memory with "is divided into"
- A cross-link from Retrieval to Long-term memory labeled "strengthens"
That is five labeled relationships on one page, and every one is a question you can ask yourself later: what are the three stages, and what strengthens long-term memory?
Vocabulary and language learning
For foreign language study, put a theme in the center, such as "travel," and branch into word groups: transport, lodging, food. Label links with grammar or usage notes, such as "verb used with" or "formal alternative to." A literature review in IJLTER of 33 peer-reviewed studies from 2012 to 2022 found that in reading instruction, maps were used before reading as an advanced organizer, during reading as an instructional medium, and after reading for summarizing and evaluation. Once your word groups are mapped, turn them into cards. Our workflow for vocabulary flashcards shows how.
Concept map or mind map?
The two get confused. A mind map radiates outward from one central idea with short keywords. A concept map ranks ideas from broad to specific and labels each connection with a phrase, which is why it suits subjects where relationships matter: causes, processes, definitions, and theories.
Can ChatGPT make a concept map?
An AI chat tool can produce a draft outline of concepts and links from text you paste in, and you can redraw that outline by hand or in a diagram app. The risk is the same as with any draft you did not build yourself: you skip the thinking that makes the map useful, and an invented or mislabeled link can slip through.
If you use an AI draft, keep the discipline from the research above:
- Compare every link label with your lecture notes or textbook. If you cannot find support for a relationship in your course materials, remove it.
- Hide the draft and rebuild it from memory.
- Use the draft's errors and omissions as the list of what to review.
The point of the exercise is the recall and the correction, not the finished picture.
Incremental reading and concept maps
Incremental reading is a software-assisted method for learning from reading. According to Wikipedia's overview, you keep a large list of electronic articles, read parts of several in each session, and extract key points into flashcards that you review over time with a spaced repetition algorithm.
The difference from concept mapping is the job each does. Incremental reading is a pipeline for processing a lot of reading material over weeks. A concept map is a snapshot of how one topic fits together. They work well in sequence:
- Read a section in short sessions and pull out the key points.
- After a few sessions on one topic, draw a map from memory to connect those points.
- Check the map against the source and note what you missed.
- Turn the gaps and key relationships into flashcards and review them on a spaced schedule.
You do not need special software to try the idea. A reading list, a notes file, and a flashcard set cover it. Our guide to effective flashcards explains how to write cards for spaced recall, and the active recall methods article covers short bursts you can fit between classes.
Our perspective
We built Atlisten around a simple observation: most students do not fail because they never read the material. They read it passively, and then they run out of time.
Concept maps are a good response to that problem, because they push you to organize. But organizing is half the job. The other half is pulling the material back out of your head, and that is where the research points. That is why we think the best study packages combine structure with practice.
Atlisten turns lectures, videos, PDFs, textbooks, notes, web articles, and YouTube links into summaries, key concepts with definitions, key facts, practice questions with explanations, and flashcards designed for spaced repetition. Our depth control lets you decide how detailed the output is, and instant feedback tells you whether your answer was right.
Use the key concepts list as the raw material for your map. Draw the map from memory. Then use the practice questions and flashcards to test every link you drew. That sequence gives you the structure of a map and the recall practice that experiments favor.
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Turn your materials into a map-ready study set
The slowest part of mapping is deciding what belongs on the page. If you start from a clear list of key concepts and definitions, you can spend your time on connections instead of sorting.
Atlisten generates that list, plus summaries, practice questions, and flashcards, from the materials you already have, in minutes. You can start on the Free plan at $0 per month. Pro is $19.99 per month and Max is $39.99 per month, with higher tiers offering greater usage limits. See the plans on Atlisten.
If your source is a recorded class, our guides to turning lectures into flashcards and YouTube to flashcards walk through the workflow. For wider habits, see our memory retention techniques and our guide to Bloom's taxonomy for studying, which helps you ask questions that go beyond definitions.
FAQ
How many concepts should a concept map have?
About ten to twenty key concepts is a good range, based on Harvard's ABLConnect guidance. Fewer than that and the map says little. More and it turns into a tangle. If a topic needs more, split it into several linked maps.
Is a concept map better than flashcards?
They do different jobs. A map shows how ideas relate, and flashcards drill individual facts and terms. In the Purdue experiments, retrieval practice outperformed concept mapping on a delayed test. So draw your map from memory, then use flashcards and practice questions to test the facts and links.
Should I make the map from my notes or from memory?
Start from memory, then check your notes. UNC recommends this order, and research from Blunt and Karpicke found that retrieval-based mapping beat extra studying a week later. Copying a map from your notes feels productive but gives you no recall practice.
How long should I spend on a concept map?
Keep the first from-memory draft short, and spend the saved time on correction and recall. The 2021 Purdue study found that longer engagement from combining mapping with retrieval did not add benefit over retrieval alone. Once the map is accurate, move on to self-testing.
Sources
- Concept Mapping, Cornell Learning Strategies Center
- Concept Mapping, Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning
- WWC Quick Review of Retrieval Practice Produces More Learning than Elaborative Studying with Concept Mapping
- Test-Taking Cements Knowledge Better Than Studying, The New York Times
- Blunt and Karpicke (2014), Learning With Retrieval-Based Concept Mapping
- O'Day and Karpicke (2021), Comparing and Combining Retrieval Practice and Concept Mapping
- Concept Maps, UNC Learning Center
- Biology Learning Strategies, UNC Learning Center
- Concept Map At-A-Glance, Harvard ABLConnect
- Creating a Concept Map, University of Guelph Library
- Evidence-Based Study Strategies, Rutgers Learning Centers
- Creating Study Guides, Utah State University
- Active Reading and Note-taking, Ohio State SSAS
- Comprehension in Second Language Education, IJLTER
- Incremental reading, Wikipedia