Focus on Study Skills

In April 2004 the third dictionary, called the Macmillan School Dictionary, was published in the Macmillan Dictionaries series. Here in MED Magazine we'd like to offer you a taster of the topics that are covered in the Study Skills section of this new dictionary.

The Study Skills pages of the Macmillan School Dictionary have been specially prepared to help you with your schoolwork. They cover basic skills you will need in all your subject areas. They contain information on preparing and interpreting tables, charts and graphs (Dealing with Data) as well as showing you how you can carry out and write up your work (Experiments and Projects).

The importance of new technology in all subject areas has also been recognized with the inclusion of a section on computer hardware and software, and computer language and the Internet (Information and Communication Technology (ICT)). The assessment of the work you do in school is of great importance. We have therefore included a section to help you to revise, and given some advice on how you can do well on the different kinds of question you will have in your exams (Revision and Examination Skills).

In addition to these topics a summary of basic language skills is also included (Capital Letters and Punctuation), together with an account of the different types of composition and the tools you can use to improve your writing (Composition Skills).

In MED Magazine we'll focus on these last two topics. This month we give you:

• advice on how to become a better writer
• a description of different types of composition
• some useful tools for writing your own composition

We hope that you will find these pages interesting and useful.