Pictures and diagrams

In the reading material, Elizabeth Hill Boone mentioned a pictorial and diagrammatic recording system which people use besides words. This system is used in many aspects of science and culture; and tells very complicated relationships between different items in a clear way. I find that I use this system a lot and rely on it very often. The author stressed the diagramming system’s use in chemistry and mathematics a lot; however, I am very familiar with its use in my life. 
Actually, my first impression of diagrams was not very good. When I began to learn writing, the first thing I was asked to write down is what story a picture told. A picture is easy to read but really hard to write out. I always feel like that I am missing some details when I am writing out a picture. And when I grew up a little, teachers loved to give me homework such as previewing the next chapter, find the relationships between the concepts introduced and put all the concepts in order. Explaining all the relationships in words was definitely a huge amount of writing; so I always chose to draw that out. However, it was hard to find out the relations; it was even harder to put the concepts in right positions where could show the relations clearly. Fortunately, I have a computer with Microsoft Office Word. The technology is really useful in making diagrams, using which I can arrange the positions of those concepts easily. 
Not only showing the complex relations, a diagram itself can contain an incredible amount of information. Taking a two-dimensional diagram as an example, we can see that its two axes have meanings and units, the diagram itself has a title, and the curve records the correlation between two items now and can tell the tendency in future. It contains so much information that I do not know how to convey it into written words. 
I learn cell’s structure using a picture taken by ultra microscope; I find my classroom using a map of MSU; and I learn the differences of memories in the old and the young using a bar graph telling the results. I use the diagramming system everyday, in every aspect of my life.