An alternative to brainstorming for generating a set of statements for concept mapping. A text abstraction method involves identifying text statements that are imbedded in some larger text and extracting them for use as separate statements in concept mapping. For instance, one could review the transcripts of a focus group discussion and identify key conclusion statements that were made. These could each be extracted and entered as a concept map statement set so that the results of the focus group discussion could be mapped and used in subsequent work (e.g., decision making or pattern matching).