(image from sparknotes.com)
“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”
Oscar Wilde
Don’t use Sparknotes. End of story.
Sparknotes. The fantastical website containing the answers to just about anything. It’s more reliable than Wikipedia but using it is equivalent to basically raising your hand and stating point-blank, “Just give me an F. I’m not going to do it anyway!” In fact, Sparknotes was probably invented by a Lang veteran itself but that’s not the point. No matter how late it is at night, no matter how much you would rather watch Pretty Little Liars or play Call of Duty, it is crucial to read all assigned texts in their entirety. Your teachers are assigning these texts for a reason. Not to deduct from your full-time occupation of updating your Facebook status, but to enrich your knowledge of literature and writing. Sometimes, a teacher will pass out a wild card book, like the one shown below, and instruct you to read and annotate it in its entirety.
Sparknotes detracts from the message of your assigned reading and doesn’t help, but hinder you! Sure, a few blurbs of character analysis may be present in your short term memory for a day or two. But come final exam, written report, or Socratic seminar, your memory will be out the door and you will just be hitting yourself in the head, thinking “why didn’t I read this!” Rule #4, annotation, ties in with rule#3. If you are reading sparknotes instead of reading a book for yourself, it isn’t possible that you’re annotating effectively. In addition, Sparknotes doesn’t give you the chance to develop your own unique analysis. Unless you’re a literary genius, reading the book in it’s entirety is the only way to go.
Instead of reading this…
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words of wisdom 