Abstract :
When a group has applied the Interpretive stuctural modeling process to develop a map of a theme or Issue, they typically Inspect visually the map they have produced to see whether it is intuitively satisfactory. While this practice is useful and may play a role in map amendment, a more thorough approah is recommended. The working space of the map consists of the ordered element pairs belonging to the Cartesian product S × S, where S is the set of elements modeled through a contextual reation represented by the binary relation R. In a systematic modeling effort it is desirable to establish the completeness of the relation R without requiring mathematical sophistication on the part of the modeling group. (If R Is not complete, only part of the knowledge germane to the working space is embedded in the model.) Moreover, some of the useful knowledge content of the working space may only be implicit in R. if the modeling group is to take full advantage of the knowedge embedded in a map, it is esential that the group understand a systematic procedure for reading maps. Such a procedure is presented, and it is postulated that the group knows how to use it.
