Most economics courses want students to develop ‘skills’. Skills relate to information (find, select, organise); interpretation (explore data, patterns and information to suggest relationships); and communication (present clear logical information appropriate to the needs of a user).

Discovering Economics is one of the few introductory level texts to go into detail about economic skills. The appendix includes hints on how to do a report or assignment; using data; information skills; note-taking; a little bit of maths; communication and writing skills; and interpreting assessment instructions.