Sparknotes.com is an educational website that exists for the benefits of both students and teachers. It helps students practice their skills in Literature, Math and Science. As for the teachers, it could serve as a study guide for them. This fun-filled website was created by some Harvard students whose main objective is to make learning fun and easy. Sparknotes is also the perfect site to check out if you want to write but not quite sure how to start. There are so many topics to choose from: Literature, Shakespeare, Biology, Chemistry, Film, History and even Biographies of famous people the world has ever known.
The creators of Sparknotes work under the philosophy: “to support and improve education, not to undermine it”. They believe in providing only the best supplement for understanding subjects in the most exciting way. The website is not a substitute for learning but is helpful in understanding Literature and other subjects. Moreover, the site gives you the impression that it is very educational. It has its own way of attracting students to use it more often so it is best to understand what the website really is all about and what it contains. Just because a site looks good, does not mean it is really good for you. Below are my comments under certain categories:
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First of all, the site does not use any kind of grand presentations as you enter the site. It is simple and as I mentioned earlier, looks very educational. It is as if after browsing the site, you probably know half of the world. The colors used are very appropriate to their target audience: high school and college students. There are specific icons to click depending on how you want to use the site and how you want your needs to be met. The Sparknotes Free Study Guide icon links you to several study guide categories that you could choose from. For example, you click on the “biography” icon, it links you to the possible names of people that you would like to know about. You either sort your searching by title or by author. So it really is very friendly when it comes to accessing to a certain topic. It also downloads fast and the topics are organized properly.
One of the things I noticed when it comes to the layout of the site is that it is very basic. Any “baby” user of the internet can find this site easy to use. The fonts they used are also simple and understandable. The creators really understood what students need and how they want their needs to be catered. They knew the behavior of their visitors because they are students themselves. They want to give their audience a feel of having a friendly tutor online that answers almost all your confusion.
The website’s main function is to assist students and “wannabe” writers on various topics that for some people may seem complicated but for others too easy. For instance, not a lot of people like studying Shakespeare. I, for sure, found it so difficult to understand his points for his characters and as to why he needed to use words that for some reason I don’t hear anymore. I thought it “gibberish” before simply because I was not interested but I had to read it because I was required to. So imagine how easier it would be for students who are required to study Shakespeare is there is such a site that provides them everything to know about him and his works. I actually used this site back in high school when I had to make a report about some parts of Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”. It was a lot easier for me to analyze the text than it was listening to my professor. Apart from that, they offer the audience tons of study guides for free that are not only downloadable but printable as well.
Sparknotes.com has a search icon that lets you type in the key words of what you are looking for. Aside from that, there is also a special icon called “subject browser” that makes you choose between the four subjects offered by the site: Literature, History, Biology and Shakespeare. Most importantly, the authors of the website made sure that any type of suggestions or comments are welcomed and appreciated. For viewers, it gives them the sense of knowing that at least the website they are visiting is legal.
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The website’s tagline “Relax. You’re here.” gives anyone the impression that the site is first of all, educational and most importantly, worry-free. It is a worry-free website because everything you need to know about Literature and other areas of knowledge are already given. It’s just up to the audience to how they want to use the information they have learned. Although, I may say honestly, that the website can make students lazy and can eventually resort to plagiarism. Besides, who would want to write anything more than what is already given in the site? The biggest concern is that if the site will discourage plagiarism and cheating although they firmly stated that Sparknotes “adamantly condemns cheating and plagiarism”. Nevertheless, the site is too open for cheating to take place. Of course the stuff they give are really good and so there is no doubt that students can easily use the materials in the site for their own benefits.
Years before, Sparknotes was only created for the purpose of understanding literary works but now, they even offer free practice SAT and ACT tests. This one, I suppose, saves the time and money for test-takers to go to SAT tutorials when they can have tutorials online. It is very helpful because it somehow makes the people prepare for the real test. It lessens their fear and anxiety of taking the test. Another thing is that they have added other subjects besides Literature. If you go to the “Economics” section, all the topics related to that subject are listed according to categories. Not only that, the topics are being explained using simple language – precise but easy to understand. It just proves that this site is created to let people appreciate learning and to take out the usual notions people have about studying Literature or Shakespeare.
Educational websites such as Sparknotes gives people the benefit of learning at home where you find yourself relaxed and free from the pressures your teachers can give you. I mentioned that it is not only for students but useful for teachers as well. They can use this site to get additional inputs for their material.
For the most obvious reason, Sparknotes is good for the children. Any child ages 8-12 who accidentally comes across the site will not find any unsuitable content. Everything they have in the site is useful. It does not contain foul words or any angry response from a viewer. That is also why I think the site is friendly and open to anyone who is interested in learning other works in Literature or any high school student who do not have a clear understanding about his or her lessons in Biology.
While people can have different opinions about the negative effects of Sparknotes.com, it cannot be denied that most of the things found in the site are really beneficial to enhance one’s knowledge.
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