Is Using SparkNotes Cheating?
SaveBecause online resources like SparkNotes are meant to supplement study rather than replace it, they can be either horribly misused — with unfortunate consequences to students' grades and professors' trust in their character — or carefully used to great success.
Throughout middle and high school, many teachers characterized online resources like SparkNotes as academic laziness or outright plagiarism. After years of these lectures, it can be hard to think of using such online resources as anything other than cheating. However, rethinking our approach to SparkNotes might provide students with a valuable tool to supplement existing study strategies, particularly in literature and Great Books courses.
Rather than precluding deep reading, SparkNotes and similar online resources can prime students for increased understanding and success.
Priming Student's Reading
When students encounter a great book for the first time, several factors might hinder their understanding. Perhaps two characters have similar names or go by different names at different points in the novel, leaving the student unsure who is speaking or how their actions relate to earlier events in the plot. Perhaps the student is unfamiliar with the author's writing style and struggles to simultaneously decode the dialogue and follow the plot. Perhaps a busy student is attempting to juggle too many classes simultaneously and can't keep track of what happened in a particular reading assignment. Other students might want more resources to improve their experiences in literature courses. Whatever the case, these difficulties don't need to be the end of the story.
Students can prime themselves for an upcoming reading by skimming through materials like a plot overview, character summaries, and a list of relevant themes. SparkNotes provides these resources and can help freshmen feel confident as they enter their first college-level literature courses. Although this is most immediately beneficial for students who struggle in literature courses, it can be a valuable tool for anyone because priming for reading in this way provides students with a mental roadmap to a complex novel. With such a roadmap, students have more energy to devote to reflection and analysis, improving their experiences with reading assignments, class discussions, essay preparation, and more.
Enhance Existing Knowledge
In addition to providing helpful information to first-time readers, primed reading can enhance students' knowledge of a text. Reviewing a character list or analyzing a list of themes before jumping into a re-read can encourage students to analyze the book in a new light, enabling them to catch things they may have otherwise missed, such as relevant foreshadowing, a crucial metaphor, or a character's actions in a specific scene. When students' reading skills and class experiences are primed in this way, they often read more intentionally and ask better questions about the text. Ultimately, this inspires deeper reflection and engagement with the class's materials, gradually creating better readers and writers by encouraging deep analysis and attention to detail.
Review for Exams
In addition to helping students while reading, SparkNotes can help students to review for exams. At the end of a semester, the books you read for your literature class may blend together until you start worrying about whether you'll remember relevant details, characters, and quotes for your exam. Skimming through the SparkNotes page can help you to quickly review key elements of the story, giving you a "refresher course" on the book and providing a helpful starting point for your exam preparation.
When creating review materials for a literature course, try synthesizing the information you just read on SparkNotes - for example, by adding a summary of the novel's plot or a description of significant characters to the notes — without looking at the website. Check back to make sure you didn't miss anything crucial, then move on to pulling class-specific information from your notes and individual observations from your annotations. Use that document as a jumping-off point for conversations with classmates, or try asking yourself questions about something in the document and writing up a mock essay response in a paragraph or two. Expanding on the information you synthesized will help cement important details while encouraging outside-the-box thinking about the book and its themes. Strategically studying in this way will prepare you for your exam far more time-efficient than re-reading every book on the syllabus and more thoroughly than repeatedly scanning through your notes can!
Before We Go... Two Other Online Resources:
Although SparkNotes and its application to literature classes is this article's focus, plenty of other online resources are out there. Here are two that might serve you well in other humanities courses!
Struggling to begin a research paper because the scope of the topic is so expansive that you don't even know where to begin? Wikipedia can help you to overcome that initial feeling of dread. A Wikipedia page provides one central location where much of a topic's relevant history is summarized, interesting sub-topics are alluded to, and a lengthy series of sources are linked at the bottom of the page. By supplying both an overview and a series of potential launch points, Wikipedia can help overwhelmed students avoid anxious spirals and decision paralysis and begin their papers confidently. Although just reading the Wikipedia page is not a replacement for researching the topic and writing the paper, it can help you get your bearings as you navigate an unfamiliar topic!
Unsure of how to access sources you need for your end-of-semester project? Rather than scouring the internet for a PDF that might not exist, try requesting a digital or physical copy through ILL, the Inter-library Loan service. Although you can figure these systems out on your own through the school library's website, setting up an appointment with a librarian can be a more productive use. After the appointment, you'll have an insider's perspective of the system rather than just a basic walkthrough. (Plus, the librarian might also know of additional resources that your university subscribes to, such as journals or online archives, which you can use to find materials you wouldn't otherwise have access to or even know about! Your project and understanding of the material will be stronger due to this intentional deep dive into the topic.)
Because online resources like SparkNotes are meant to supplement study rather than replace it, they can be either horribly misused — with unfortunate consequences to students' grades and professors' trust in their character — or carefully used to great success. If a student relies on these online resources exclusively — without doing much reading and research on their own — then their surface-level knowledge of the topic will be obvious during in-class discussions, papers, and exams. However, if students strategically use online resources to prime their reading, enhance their existing knowledge, and review for exams, these tools can be a valuable addition to their studying skillset, preparing them for ongoing success in university and beyond.
Ceanna Hayes Daniels
Ceanna Hayes Daniels is freelance writer and editor. In 2022, she graduated Hillsdale College summa cum laude with a degree in politics. In her free time, she continues to enjoy studying philosophy, political theory, and literature. She and her husband live in Michigan, where the two enjoy perusing bookstores together for new books and old records.Articles & Advice
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