Do you consider this cheating? read the post before voting

[muz]

i wouldnt consider it cheating , you formed some of your own ideas but we cant form them all and as long as you dont exactly copy out what spark notes says i wouldnt consider it cheating
a lot of the time this is how you are going to learn things the higher up you go in education anyway , by reading books and notes and analysis's of other people and then forming your own analysis based on theses

 

[dude_se]

i wouldnt say its cheating at all. its no different from revising for your exams. besides, they dont give you an exact answer to your question, they just analyse the book. you're the one whos written the answer and have used what you have learnt both from the book and the site to do so.

 

[esa193]

its not cheating
as long as you are not copying someones else work
then comparing notes with online sources is perfectly fine

 

[hascet]

No, Spark Notes is a good tool. Don't rely on it completely but going their and reading over it will help you out. All of my teachers say Reading the book and going to Spark Notes is a good thing.

 

[freestyler105]

It's not cheating because literature class is BS, it's essentially "regurgitating your teachers opinions about symbolism 101."

If you use the notes as an aid to help you understand what the drug-addled writer was trying to convey, it's an educational assistance tool.

But FYI I always read the books first and go back with notes for a better understanding.

+1 to that.

 

[MooseMan1]

I would consider it cheating. You would not be allowed to go look up stuff on Sparknotes if it was an in class assignment. I wouldn't punish someone if I found they used Sparknotes for my assignment (if I was a teacher.) It's really almost more like your cheating yourself out of a better understanding of the book. My history teacher found out that someone was using spark notes for a book assignment, and did not punish them. She was dissapointed, but did not punish. Once the test came around though, they didn't do very well... That is what she considered the punishment.

Now, to say I haven't or wouldn't do the same thing would by lying. But in my honest opinion, the best way of doing it is reading through the book for understanding, so you yourself have the concept, not Sparknotes.

Anyway, good luck. I hope it works out for you better than them.

 

[Rubber314Chicken]

90% of the jobs will require the skills to write the good paper off of what you learned on the book. very few will require you to interpret readings (a lawyer will have to do that for example)

I see no problem as long as when you write the paper that is all done by yourself.

 

[UK31337]

Spark Notes are there for a reason and they're an excellent tool to aid in your understanding. If, for any reason, your teacher is discouraging you from using them then they're just being plain silly. But I will deign to go with the flow here and suggest that reading the book in the first instance is greatly preferable to simply tossing it to one side and leeching from the notes; the notes are there to bolster your pre-existing understanding, not develop it from scratch and if you haven't even read the book then you'll find that most of it doesn't make a great deal of sense in any case. If you've done the work required of you before you use the notes, then it's not cheating; extra understanding is never a bad thing with regards to situations like this.

Remember, most of the time the stuff you learn in English class is abject BS; your opinion is not yours, it's what your teacher and the exam board want you to think, and you'll likely find that your "opinion" is wrong in an exam even when requested. I remember the old Standard Grade English papers I used to sit at school, there'd be questions like "What do you think the author is trying to achieve....", "What's your opinion on...." and it was a right-or-wrong answer with marks attached. If your opinion, regardless of its validity, didn't match the marking scheme then it was completely wrong and scored zero, regardless of the justification and validity of it. This isn't so true in essay questions at a higher level, but be wary of it.

I'd say "fuck it" and learn the book for your own ends. Literature is there to be enjoyed and treasured, not lectured with a skewed view from some teacher.

 

[JogaBonito1502]

What I did was read the book a little bit everyday according to what Spark Notes had available for review. Like, they had a section for the summary and analysis of the Prologue. So what I did was read the prologue, then go to Spark Notes and read their summary and analysis. Then I did the same for chapters. Read chapters I, II, III, then I went to Spark Notes and reviewed. So I pretty much was visiting Spark Notes as I read to make sure I didn't leave anything out. I'm finishing the book today and starting on one of my essays tomorrow. Like mentioned here I won't mention anything the way Spark Notes did. Even if I do, I'll go into more detail, because Spark Notes is very brief about it.

I usually enjoy reading and writing. I love doing research papers, but I cannot take symbolism anymore. Sometimes, I wonder whether the author even wanted to put symbolism in there or whether it's just coincidence. I, for one, would never write with symbolism. I guess because my thing is with the exact sciences, symbolism comes very hard for me. Writing with emotion and such too.

 

[lhuser]

I don't consider that cheating. You've read the book and jotted down notes. These notes, believe it or not, they stick in your brain. As you write things that looks important to you, you grab a notepad and a pen. You jot down important segments. Those are also stored in your brain, since it is considered important.

You didn't take the notes with you, so that also makes it even better than with the notes. You did the job that was asked, even if it was later in the year. They won't cut you because of that. Prooves you're a responsible guy.