best-selling introduction to study skills for humanities
The Good Study Guide started life as a set text on one of the Open University’s social science foundation courses, and it has quite rightly gone on to become a best-seller. In fact there are now separate versions for arts and sciences. The book can be used as an introductory workbook or as a source of reference. It deals with reading and note-taking skills, essay writing, working with numbers, and preparing for examinations. On learning techniques it covers learning in groups, talks and lectures, and (specially for OU students) learning from radio and television.
The main features worth recommending are its use of realistic examples and the friendly manner in which it addresses the reader. It engages you as actively as possible by posing questions, highlighting important points, setting short quizzes, and breaking up the exposition into manageable chunks. This approach to active and [in educational jargon] ‘open’ learning is particularly suitable for anyone embarking on a distance-learning course, or students engaged in any form of independent learning. There are no suggestions for further reading, but there’s a full index and at its current price this is exceptionally good value.
© Roy Johnson 2005
Andrew Northedge, The Good Study Guide, Buckingham: The Open University, 2nd edition 2005, pp.392, ISBN: 0749259744