Study guides can be broad based to facilitate learning

Learning

Learning is acquiring new or modifying existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals and some machines. Progress over time tends to follow learning curves.Human learning...

 in a number of areas, or be resources that foster comprehension of literature, research topics, history, and other subjects.

General topics include study and testing strategies; reading, writing, classroom, and project management skills; as well as techniques for learning as an adult, with disabilities, and online. Some will summarize chapters of novels or the important elements of the subject. Study guides for math and science often present problems (as in problem-based learning) and will offer techniques of resolution.

Academic support centers in schools often develop study guides for their students, as do for-profit companies and individual students and professors. Once only found at local five and dime stores the internet brought about a new era of online sites with study material. Only CliffsNotes

CliffsNotes

CliffsNotes are a series of student study guides available primarily in the United States. The guides present and explain literary and other works in pamphlet form or online. Detractors of the study guides claim they let students bypass reading the assigned literature...

 survived this transition to the internet. Examples of companies that produce study guides include SparkNotes

SparkNotes

SparkNotes, originally part of a website called The Spark, is a company started by Harvard students Sam Yagan, Max Krohn, Chris Coyne, and Eli Bolotin in 1999 that originally provided study guides for literature, poetry, history, film, and philosophy...

, CliffsNotes

CliffsNotes

CliffsNotes are a series of student study guides available primarily in the United States. The guides present and explain literary and other works in pamphlet form or online. Detractors of the study guides claim they let students bypass reading the assigned literature...

, Novelguide, Schaum's Outlines

Schaum's Outlines

Schaum's Outlines are a series of supplementary texts for American high school, AP, and college-level courses. The full name of each outline is Schaum's Outline of Theory and Problems of the outline's subject, but this is almost always shortened to Schaum's Outlines. The outlines cover a wide...

 and Permacharts, and the not-for-profit Study Guides and Strategies. Novelguide was sited by Microsoft as one of the top 14 websites recommended for students.

Some high school teachers or college professors may compose study guides for their students to assist them with reading comprehension, content knowledge, or preparation for an examination. These study guides may be issued as an assignment to be completed or as a comprehensive selection of material assembled by the teacher.

See also

• Homework
  Homework
  Homework, or homework assignment, refers to tasks assigned to students by their teachers to be completed outside of class. Common homework assignments may include a quantity or period of reading to be performed, writing or typing to be completed, problems to be solved, a school project to be built...
  
  
• Problem-based learning
  Problem-based learning
  Problem-based learning is a student-centered pedagogy in which students learn about a subject in the context of complex, multifaceted, and realistic problems...
  
  
• Electronic learning
• Study skills
  Study Skills
  Study skills or study strategies are approaches applied to learning. They are generally critical to success in school, are considered essential for acquiring good grades, and are useful for learning throughout one's life....
  
  
• FlashNotes
  FlashNotes
  FlashNotes.com is a website that allows college students to buy and sell class notes, study guides, book summaries, lecture notes, and other items to help students study and/or earn money throughout their college years.- History :...