Cliffs Notes/Spark Notes

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Is using these unethical if you have not read the book? I have a quiz this week on a very long book (about 60% through). Would reading these for the rest of the book be cheating? It just bugs me and I don't know weather I can do it or not.

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I wouldn't call it cheating. But your prof probably knows people use them and will potentially quiz on things not covered in/more specific than sparknotes/clifnotes summaries.
 
I wouldn't call it cheating. But your prof probably knows people use them and will potentially quiz on things not covered in/more specific than sparknotes/clifnotes summaries.

This is true
 
Personally, I could never use sparknotes in place of the actual book. Their summaries are pretty horrible. The only thing I use them for is refreshing my memory about a certain chapter or something.
 
I wouldn't call it cheating. But your prof probably knows people use them and will potentially quiz on things not covered in/more specific than sparknotes/clifnotes summaries.

Personally, I could never use sparknotes in place of the actual book. Their summaries are pretty horrible. The only thing I use them for is refreshing my memory about a certain chapter or something.

Both of these are valid points. Usually, Cliff Notes/Spark Notes covers the general themes and basic plot of the book, so while I don't believe it would be cheating to use these resources to help you study, it may not be beneficial to you to use them as your only source of information.
 
I wouldn't call it cheating. But your prof probably knows people use them and will potentially quiz on things not covered in/more specific than sparknotes/clifnotes summaries.
Truth.

Don't forget that most of these people have things called PhD's 😉
 
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