OK looks good. I think we can try a new type of tree. But in general, if you ever think you need more practice, tell me or just do it.
So the next type of tree will be a plot tree. Think of a story you’re pretty familiar with and make a tree of the plot. Focus on organizing the big stuff well. Leave out little details. 10-30min
Lord of the Mysteries - Volume 1: Clown.pdf (20.9 KB)
I set a timer for 30 minutes and worked on it until it went off. I think I went into the little details more than I intended.
I don’t know the story but it looks probably ok. Are there some stories you know that I know? Heinlein, Sanderson, or a lot of popular fantasy could work.
Harry Potter? The past few years I’ve primarily read a lot of Chinese webnovels, Japanese light novels, and manga.
I googled some popular fantasy series. There are definitely some I’ve read before like Eragon but the plot is completely wiped from my mind since I read them ages ago.
I’ve read Harry Potter
Oops, maybe it wasn’t clear, but do a Harry Potter tree. Maybe just book 1.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.pdf (24.5 KB)
It was. Just hadn’t had a chance to get to it.
This took about ~45 minutes. I spent around 15 minutes reviewing the overall plot of book one as I only have vague recollections of what happened. I then set a timer for thirty minutes and made the tree.
Did you look at any plot summary before doing the lord of mysteries tree?
No. I had just recently re-read the series so I remembered a lot of the details at the start. I did refer to a chapter guide when I felt like I was done to make sure my order of events was correct and to see if I remembered most of the big plot points.
Did you make changes based on the chapter guide?
Oh. Yes. I didn’t remember when he first got his hands on Roselle’s diary. I did move it under to his time with the blackthorn security company.
I added from the chapter guide the event where he divined the red chimney.
That should be it. I don’t think I moved or added anything else.
That’s fine for the lord of mysteries tree. For the harry potter tree, your tree is fine, but the problem is summaries or outlines organize the information for you, which makes it easier.
Let’s try this. Read chapter 1 of Robert Heinlein’s The Star Beast. Then make a plot tree just from memory.
Re-took typing test. I got 118 wpm and 100% accuracy. However, I did change from typing.com to monkeytype.com as I felt it had better tools for practicing. I did do a test on typing.com and got 93wpm with 100% accuracy.
The primary difference between the two is that typing.com includes capitalization, punctuation, a lot more varied vocabulary, and numbers. While the basic test on monkeytype.com is just “By default, this website uses the most common 200 words in the English language to generate its tests. You can change to an expanded set (1000 most common words) in the options, or change the language entirely.” (from their about).
I decided to practice with larger words as it helps me be more mindful as I type and is closer to the more varied vocabulary used day-to-day.
With punctuation, numbers and the 5000 most common words enabled I got a 70wpm at 100% accuracy.
That’s a good improvement and good results. I’d suggest practicing more at least until you stop improving quickly, but it’s up to you.
BTW, second try for me:
I will. I’ve enjoyed it so far. The fastest I’ve gotten is 130wpm with 100% accuracy. It was on 15 seconds though. I don’t feel like counting those just because its such a short burst. All the tests I previously mentioned were on 60 seconds.
Without looking at your tree or the book, make an outline of the chapter using nested bullet points.
There are organizational problems with the tree and outline. There are two issues I want you to think more about when making trees.
First, (usually) siblings should be parallel. This means that all nodes with the same parent should be the same kind/type of thing. They should all fit into the same category (the category is indicated by the parent). They should all be the same in some way.
For example, if the parent node is fruit, the siblings could be apples, oranges, plums and peaches. Those are all the same kind or type of thing (fruit), and they fit into the category (fruit) indicated by the parent.
Second, what is the relationship between the parent and the child? If the relationship is the same every time, then the siblings will be parallel. But if the relationship varies, then the siblings may not be parallel, and you may also get some other problems. You can write out, as an English sentence, the relationship between a parent and child, or why the child goes under that parent, or something along those lines. (Similarly, when reading a tree, including reviewing your own tree, you should be able to think of those relationship sentences. If you can’t, then the tree is wrong or you don’t understand it well enough.)
For example, “an apple is a type of a fruit” is a sentence explaining the relationship between the parent node “fruit” and its child node “apple”. This is a simple relationship, but other times the sentence will be a bit more complicated and involve some other notable words. Here, the only words in the sentence are basically generic filler or glue words that you would use for many other topics (an, is, a, of, a), plus the exact words in the parent and child (fruit, apple), plus one more word, “type” (which, along with “kind” and “category”, is one of the typical words for writing a relationship sentences).
Try remaking the chapter 1 tree using these ideas. 20-90min. If that sounds hard, practice them with some smaller, simpler trees first.
