2.4 - Find a noun
In the previous section of this guide, we showed you how to find all statements for a noun by double-clicking on that noun in the Nouns List.
If the number of nouns in the Nouns List is small, it's easy to scroll through the list to find the noun you're looking for.
However, MindModel allows you to store hundreds of thousands of nouns (or more) in each model. With a large number of nouns per model, you need a quicker and easier way to find a noun than scrolling through all the nouns in the list.
First Specify the Noun Type
The first step in finding a noun is to tell MindModel the type of noun you're looking for.
As you can see in the picture below, there are two items in the Model Window that you use to find nouns: the Noun Types Drop-Down Menu, and the Find Nouns Entry Area.
First, select the item in the Noun Types Drop-Down Menu that corresponds to the type of noun you want to find. In this case, we've chosen "people" since we want to find a person.
Second, Specify Part of the Name
Once you've selected a noun type, click in the Find Nouns Entry Area, then type part of the name of the person you want to find.
There are a few reasons why it's usually a good idea to type part of the name, rather than the whole name.
First of all, MindModel searches for exactly the name you enter, so if the person's name isn't exactly what you type, MindModel won't find the person. For example, if you enter "Susan B. White" and the person is stored in MindModel as "Susan White", MindModel will not find the person.
However, if you enter "White", MindModel will find all the people whose names contain "White". Then you can scroll through the Nouns List and find "Susan White".
A second reason why it's often a good idea to enter part of the name is that it can save you time. If you're looking for a person named "Bartholomew Squiggleston", it would take quite a while to type that name into the Find Nouns Entry Area.
Instead, you could just type "mew". MindModel will find people whose names contain "mew", in any part of the name. It isn't likely that there will be too many people with "mew" in their names, so you won't have much trouble looking through the Nouns List for "Bartholomew Squiggleston".
The same technique works no matter what noun type you're looking for: people, organizations, skills, etc.
Third, Click Go
Once you've selected a noun type and entered part of the name you're looking for, click the "Go" button to the right of the Find Nouns Entry Area to begin the search. If you prefer, you can hit the return key (on the keyboard) instead of clicking the Go button.
Once you click Go (or hit return), MindModel will fill the Nouns List (the top list in the Model Window) with the nouns that match your selected noun type and entry.
As you can see from the picture below, the user has selected "people", entered "susan" as part of the name, and clicked the Go button.
MindModel has filled the Nouns List with all people whose names contain "susan", which in this case is one person: Susan White.
You may also notice that, even though Susan White's name is displayed in the Nouns List, the Statements List still shows statements related to Dale Ritcey, the previously-selected noun.
This is not a mistake. This is the way MindModel is supposed to work. If you want MindModel to find all statements related to Susan White, just double-click on Susan White's name in the Nouns List.
Sometimes new users tell us that they'd like MindModel to find statements for the selected noun automatically, without their having to double-click on the noun. After using MindModel for a while, most users agree that this automatic feature would not be helpful.
Many times, you'll want to find a noun without finding statements for that noun. You may want to see a noun summary in the Summary Window. You may want to right-click on the noun to bring up the Nouns List drop-down menu. Having to wait for MindModel to find statements for the selected noun every time would take up too much time.
Click here to continue.