Make a Mind Map From a Textbook Chapter With Feynman Mindmap

In this tutorial you'll make a mind map from a textbook chapter with Ritsu's Feynman Mindmap: a tree of the chapter's main ideas you can open level by level, where every node explains one idea in plain words and checks it with a question. Our recorded run took about three and a half minutes of scripted clicks from the empty page to the first node checked, reading time not counted; working through every node takes longer. You need the chapter as a file or as text, and a free account.

Feynman Mindmap is the Ritsu tool that turns a chapter, lecture or video into a map of its key ideas, where every node explains one idea in plain language and checks it with a question.

A chapter read front to back can leave you holding the pieces without the shape. One learner on r/medicalschool put it this way: "I knew all these random facts, but didn't know how they fit together and why they actually mattered." This lesson starts from the shape, then checks the pieces one at a time.

Try it in Ritsu as you read: Start Learning Free

Before you start

• One chapter, not the whole book. On the Free plan a single file can be up to 40 pages. If your textbook is one big PDF, or your chapter runs past 40 pages, cut it into parts with Split PDF, which runs free in your browser.
• No chapter at hand? Open section 6.2, Classical Conditioning, of OpenStax's free Psychology 2e. Save it as a PDF from your browser's print menu, or copy its text for Paste text (at least 200 characters). The screenshots below use a page of our own chapter notes on the same topic, 410 words long.
• A free account. The map, your answers and your ticks are kept in it.

The screenshots come from our recorded run on October 15, 2026. File sizes, node counters and credit figures on screen are painted out.

Step 1: Add your chapter and a focus line

Open the Feynman Mindmap page and press Map My Material; sign up or sign in if asked. (Inside the app, the tool sits under Learning Tools.) On the page headed New Mindmap, type one line on what to map. The map is written in the language you type it in. Ours read "The whole chapter: classical conditioning." Leave File selected and drop your chapter onto Drop file or click to browse.

You'll see your file's name under the box, marked Uploaded, and Create Mindmap lit.

If Create Mindmap stays grey: in our run it was grey while the box and the file were empty, and lit once both were filled. Add the missing one.

Step 2: Create the map

Press Create Mindmap. A panel headed Drawing your mindmap runs through three stages: Uploading File, Processing Content, and Drawing the Map, which reads "Designing the structure, writing Feynman explanations and check questions." The map's title and a one-sentence summary of the chapter show up first, and the nodes fill in under Map structure as they are written. Ours took a little over a minute.

You'll see the three stages tick green one after another, and a counter of nodes written so far.

If the map does not start: a map uses the credits in your account. The product page says the tool stops before spending if your balance is short; in our run the estimate appeared on this screen, next to the node count.

Step 3: Read the outline, then start

When the drawing ends, scroll through Map structure once before you open anything. It lists every node: the main branches first, then the smaller ideas. Then press Start Learning.

You'll see the outline of your chapter. Our 410 words of notes became 16 nodes: the chapter itself, six branches (from Pavlov's Foundational Experiment to Applications in Daily Life) and nine smaller ideas.

If your map looks too small or too big: the default, Auto, sizes the map to the source, between 8 and 60 nodes. The product page lists three fixed bands too: Concise (15 to 22 nodes), Standard (25 to 40) and Comprehensive (40 to 60). A short handout gives a small map on purpose rather than filler.

Step 4: Zoom out to the main branches

The map opens as a tree, with the chapter on the left. In the bar at the top, click L1. The short lines to the right of each branch lead to the ideas the next levels will show.

You'll see only the chapter and its main branches, each with a one-line summary and a tag: CORE, CONCEPT, PROCESS or EXAMPLE. Read them top to bottom and say out loud how one leads to the next. Where you can't, that's the branch to open first.

Step 5: Open the levels one at a time

Click L2, then L3, then All. Each level adds the ideas under the branches. To move around a big map, scroll or drag to pan, and hold Ctrl or ⌘ while you scroll to zoom.

You'll see the whole tree. Ours put the four parts of conditioning (US, UR, CS and CR) under one branch, and taste aversion, emotional conditioning and advertising under Applications in Daily Life. One leaf, Biological Preparedness, carried a WARNING tag.

Step 6: Open a node and read its explanation

Click a node; we chose Extinction and Recovery. A NODE DETAIL panel opens on the right.

You'll see the node's name, a one-line summary, and a short explanation in plain language. Ours used the bell and the food: keep ringing the bell without food and the dog stops salivating, yet after a break the response can return, "the memory of the association still exists deep down." Under it sits a CHECK QUESTION. Read the explanation once, then cover it before you answer.

If a node has no question: the product page says a node with no question completes when you open it.

Step 7: Answer the check and earn the tick

Pick one answer and press Check Answer. Ours asked about a child who had stopped fearing a white rat and then, a week later, felt the fear again. We chose Spontaneous Recovery.

You'll see Correct! with a one-sentence reason, then "Node completed — every answer correct. The tick is yours to keep." A green tick appears on the node in the tree, and the progress counter beside the map's title (painted out in our screenshots) goes up by one. Practice again clears the answers; the tick stays.

If your answer is wrong: the product page says your first answer to each question is the one recorded, and a node completes only when every answer is correct. Our run only recorded a correct answer, so we can't show you the wrong-answer screen.

What you just did

You saw the chapter's structure before its details. David Ausubel (1960) proposed giving learners a structure before the details, which he called advance organizers, and a review of 135 studies by Luiten, Ames and Ackerson (1980) found advance organizers helped both learning and retention. A map generated from the chapter is not the same thing as those organizers, so take it as the same idea, not the same evidence. Each node then gave you an idea in plain words followed by a check, which echoes the Feynman technique. Answering with the explanation covered is retrieval, which Roediger and Karpicke (2006) found kept prose in memory a week later better than rereading did; a multiple-choice check is a lighter test than the free recall in their study, so active recall in your own words still matters.

FAQ

Q: Can AI make a mind map from a PDF or textbook chapter?

Yes. Feynman Mindmap takes a PDF, DOCX, Markdown, text, images, slides or a notebook, a YouTube link, a website, or pasted text, and builds the map from that material only. On the Free plan a single file can be up to 40 pages and a video up to 30 minutes, so map one chapter at a time.

Q: How is this different from the /mindmap command?

Both draw a map whose nodes carry a description and a check question. /mindmap runs inside a study session, on the topic, unit or units you are studying there. Feynman Mindmap is a standalone tool: you give it one source and get a map of that source, without starting a session.

Q: Can I download or share the map?

Not yet. Today a map lives in your account; there is no image export and no public link. The product page says both are planned.

Q: Does it work on a phone?

Yes. The map pans and zooms with your fingers, a node opens in a sheet you can read and answer in, and every check is a tap.

Next steps

Try it in Ritsu on the chapter you're on next: map it, read the main branches, and answer the check on the branch you can't yet explain. Start Learning Free Free forever · No credit card · No time limit

• Master a textbook chapter: take the same chapter through a full study plan once you can see its shape.
• How to master a textbook chapter with Ritsu: the next tutorial, the chapter in a study session.
• In the help center: the /mindmap command, for a map inside a session.

Sources

• Ausubel, D. P. (1960). The use of advance organizers in the learning and retention of meaningful verbal material. Journal of Educational Psychology, 51(5), 267–272. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0046669
• Luiten, J., Ames, W., & Ackerson, G. (1980). A meta-analysis of the effects of advance organizers on learning and retention. American Educational Research Journal, 17(2), 211–218. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312017002211
• Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x
• OpenStax. Psychology 2e, section 6.2, Classical Conditioning (CC BY 4.0). https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/6-2-classical-conditioning
• Ritsu. Feynman Mindmap, product page and FAQ, read October 19, 2026. https://ritsu.ai/products/feynman-mindmap

By Ritsu Team · Last updated October 19, 2026