back to school

Autumn’s coming up, and with it starts the rounds of evening classes and part-time study. Alongside individual college brochures, each library branch holds guides to fulltime, parttime, and online day and evening courses to help you choose one that suits. Returning to study can be rewarding – learning a new skill, a language, obtaining a qualification. It can also be daunting, particularly if it’s a long time since you were last in a classroom;  but there are lots of good guides available to help get you up and running, and freshen up your study skills.

The Good study guide by Andrew Northedge, from the Open University, is well laid out, written in clear language, and full of tips on time management, reading and note-taking skills, and essay writing.

Improve your writing skills, from Collins,  is a really useful guide on the 'dos and donts' of writing. It covers the basics, such as style, clarity, grammar, and punctuation; and also has sections on avoiding jargon and clichés. It gives plenty of examples, and covers essays, letters and CVs.

There’s also a great series for Junior and Leaving Cert, called Less stress more success, which covers most of the subjects. It  includes past exam papers, with answers and worked examples, and covers the essential points. For a lot of the subjects, especially the Big Three, both higher and ordinary levels are available.