Organize information and ideas 
Generate many ideas 
Elaborate on ideas 
Represent abstract or implicit concepts in more concrete and explicit forms 
Illustrate the relationships between and among concepts 
Relate new information to prior knowledge 
Store and retrieve information 
Assess thinking and learning

Done by means of charts, maps, and schematics 
Rely on the use of arrows, geometric shapes and spatial arrangements to describe the text content, structure and key conceptual relationships

are concise and show the key ideational relationship in a simple visual fashion that uses the human capability for visual imagery

Traditional outlines encourage you to look at your courses in a linear fashion and in the contact of narrative text,

you see only verbal compendiums of isolated bits of knowledge

no general applicable rules or policies emerge

Graphic organizers allows you to create visual images of the handful of core principles that link seemingly unrelated bits of information

helps to develop constructed knowledge

Recommended approach for Developing Graphic organizers

Basic principles should easily fit on one page of legal size paper

begin with a map of the basic principles of the course

prepare more detailed maps which included

secondary principles cases professors' comment