This article examines the conditions under which handouts should be used for instruction, reviews their various uses and suggests some guidelines for their construction. We have based our evaluation on our own varied experiences, together with the published findings of investigations into the efficacy of handouts as aids to instruction.We hope that this article will be of interest to inexperienced medical teachers who are experimenting with different approaches to instruction, as well as to more experienced teachers, who may find it valuable to compare such experiences. In addition, a structured evaluation of any teaching aids which draw on medical school funds is particularly useful in the face of financial cut backs, as at present.