About SparkNotes

Sometimes you don't understand your teacher, your textbooks make no sense, and you have to read sixteen chapters by tomorrow.

SparkNotes is a resource you can turn to when you're confuzzled. We help you understand books, write papers, and study for tests. We're clear and concise, but we never leave out important info.

As SparkNotes editors, our mission is to help you make sense of confusing schoolwork. We are well qualified to lend a hand: we're graduates of top schools, we have advanced degrees galore, we've taught undergraduate and graduate classes, and we've edited books on Shakespeare, The Scarlet Letter, and the SAT (and that's just the S's!). We work with experts to create books, blogs, quizzes, and flashcards that will help you master hard material.

Our Stuff

At SparkNotes, we give you multiple ways to study: online, on your eReader, and with good old books. Here's what we offer:

SparkNotes Guides: Our guides contain thorough summaries and insightful critical analyses. We offer more than 500 guides for English literature and Shakespeare, and a vast number of guides for history, math, biology, and other subjects. Our most popular guides now include quick quizzes, so you can test your retention before the test.

No Fear Shakespeare: No Fear Shakespeare provides side-by-side translations of Shakespeare into plain English. No Fear Shakespeare is available online and in book form.

SparkNotes on Facebook and Twitter: Become a fan of SparkNotes on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. We'll post updates, give you new homework help, and let you know what's new on SparkLife.

We're always evolving and creating new content, and we welcome your input and requests!

Plagiarism and Cheating

We're here to help you learn, not to help you cheat. Our literature guides are meant to be read along with the books they analyze. They are not intended to be copied on tests or papers (aka plagiarized).

Plagiarism is copying the words or the ideas of another person or institution without acknowledging that you got those words or ideas from that source. You can avoid plagiarizing from SparkNotes by citing words and ideas that came from our site or books (to see instructions on how to do that, see How to Cite SparkNotes), or by putting your own spin on our ideas. Our hope is that our analyses will help you draw your own conclusions about the work, and craft a unique opinion for tests and papers.