Students’ use of Sparknotes varies

With nearly all English classes assigning daily reading, students’ overall reading load can reach a difficult level quickly. As a result, many have taken to simpler means of receiving the necessary information to ace reading quizzes and understand key themes instead of actually reading the text.

Sparknotes, a website that offers chapter-by-chapter summaries of works frequently read in high school, has caught the attention of nearly every student on campus at one point or another. A senior boy interviewed said he believes that Sparknotes can often ensure a student digests the required information without investing too much time.

“If I have time, I read the actual text, but that's not always the case,” he said. “Sometimes I'm forced to use online summaries in order to be prepared for class and still get a good night of sleep.”

The senior said that the desire to actually perform the assigned reading often varies from novel to novel, citing an example from his junior year.

“At the time, [‘The Scarlet Letter’] definitely fell into the online category nicely,” he said. “It was definitely a strong candidate for Sparknotes.”

Senior Tiffany Zai always is sure to read each assigned novel, although she does tend to check Sparknotes for summaries from time to time.

“I’ve never used Sparknotes for a whole book, although I have for a few chapters here and there,” Zai said. “I find reading the books more enjoyable, and the content ticks with me better when I read the book also.”

Students are sometimes less inclined to read books they would otherwise enjoy simply because the literature has been assigned for academic purposes. Zai said that the most difficult part of English classes is the pace of the reading.

“I enjoy reading school books less than other books because I hate being forced to read a certain amount of pages before the next class,” Zai said. “And then there are the reading quizzes that can be difficult even if you really read what was assigned.”

One junior boy said he has a simple rule for English books: Read the actual book until boredom hits and then switch to Sparknotes.

“I start by reading the actual novel because sometimes the books are actually pretty good,” he said. “But sometimes the books make me fall asleep, so I’m literally forced to log onto Sparknotes.”

The junior added that the presence of deadlines for each portion of the novel takes away from the experience of reading each piece significantly. The greatest way to ensure that students actually read each book is to have looser deadlines, he said.

“Deadlines for reading kind of kill the whole experience,” he said. “I feel like I have to read a certain amount and understand it on a certain level before a certain day, and it destroys the possibility of enjoying the book.”

On the other hand, senior Eugene Che said that he stays away from Sparknotes and tries to read each book.

“I want to be a better reader,” Che said. “It's a skill that applies itself extensively in the future.”

Che does not necessarily look down on those who use Sparknotes, but said that students should just read what is assigned, since that is what is expected by the teachers.

“School gets busy, but sometimes you need to do the right thing, even when the wrong thing would be a whole lot easier,” Che said.