Pattern Explanation
 

I am knitting a sweater that has a pattern stitch on a multiple of 6 plus 5. The last row of the pattern, row 8, tells me to K5,
*with yarn in front sl 1, p2 tog, psso, K5.
Do I do the slip as if to purl? One of my books says do the stitch purlwise
and the other says knitwise. Is there some kind of rule to apply here?

Sorta... when you slip a stitch at the beginning of a row, slip pwise. When it's in a dec to pass over other stitches, slip kwise, because pwise would twist it and you want the dec to lie flat. The psso dec is the mirror to k2tog.

sue