Cliffs Notes

What Are Cliffs Notes?

Cliffs Notes or CliffsNotesc are a series of study guides that are designed to help students understand literature and other books. Cliffs Notes can be a useful study tool, but they can also be a danger to students who try to use them in the wrong way. They are not cheat sheets.

Dangers of Using Cliffs Notes

First and foremost, you should know that some teachers do not allow students Cliffs Notes—period. Before you even explore the option, ask your teacher about his or her policy. Teachers who have strong negative feelings about Cliffs Notes consider the use of such tools as cheating.

Never use Cliffs Notes as a replacement for reading the actual work. Why?

First of all, study guides such as these oversimplify texts and often prevent students from gaining value from reading literature, like learning to appreciate the beauty of writing and understanding the important life lessons and messages that come from great literature.

Also, every teacher knows about Cliffs Notes and they are familiar with all the information available in these study tools about a particular book. Any good teacher will know if a student has done this simply by reading the content of the paper.

Some of the information contained in Cliffs Notes and other similar guides is inaccurate or it is based on viewpoint or opinion. By making an assertion that you’ve found in Cliffs Notes (without reading the book), you will be cheating. You’ll also be tipping off your teacher.

Teachers often word their paper assignments in a way that hinders the student from using study tools. For example, teachers may ask students to answer a specific question about the theme of death in The Red Badge of Courage instead of asking students to come up with a theme. The teacher will ask a question that is not addressed in common study guides like Cliffs Notes.

For this reason, you should never take it upon yourself to change the assignment—especially when using a study aid. Your teacher will smell a rat!

Using Cliffs Notes the Right Way

Some teachers allow or even encourage the use of Cliffs Notes as a study aid for difficult readings. Usually, teachers who otherwise wouldn’t allow their use will make exceptions for reading assignments that they know to be particularly difficult, like ancient texts or Shakespeare plays.

Let’s face it. Sometimes you can read a passage and not understand a word of it. Or—you can read a book, set it down, and realize that very little of it sank in.

For this reason, some students use study guides as an introduction to a particular work because they need to get an overview of a story line before diving in to the actual text.

Other times, students will want to read the actual work first and then read the study guide to see how well they understood the text. This is the best idea for serious literature students. By toiling through the difficult passages first, students can develop their reading skills. They’ll need them in college!

At some point you may want to consult Cliffs Notes if you really struggle with finding a theme for a book. This is dangerous, though—it’s much too easy for students to rely heavily on the guide. It is much better to consult a guide like this to eliminate possible themes and brainstorm to come up with original ideas.

Please Note: If you do use a study guide in your research about a particular text, be sure to cite it as a source. Otherwise, you may be charged with committing plagiarism.

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