Some thoughts: For me, the concept map added little value over an outline or bulleted list, probably in part because I basically made an outline first, then converted it into a concept map. That said, I recognize that I am a verbal person and I have been making outlines since grade school; I can definitely understand that for other learners, a concept map might be more approachable and easier to comprehend than a text-dense outline, especially for topics that are less linear than the one I selected here. (Or is it that my thought process is linear because my outline is linear, and therefore any topic I choose would become mostly linear 
?)