A QCD Primer

1. Introduction 2. Massless QCD and Scale Invariance 3. The Renormalisation Group and Asymptotic Freedom 4. More on the Running Coupling 5. Application to Hard Processes 5.1 $R_{e^+e^-}$ and Related Processes 5.2 The Final State in $e^+e^-$ Annihilation 5.3 Deep Inelastic Scattering 5.4 Factorisation and the QCD Improved Parton Model 6. Measurements of $\alpha_s$ 6.1 $\alpha_s$ from $e^+e^-$ Colliders 6.2 $\alpha_s$ from Deep Inelastic Scattering 7. Conclusion 8. Appendix: The Formalism of Gauge Theories