You can’t lie, whether it was in high school or in college, all of us have used websites such as Spark Notes or Cliff Notes to summarize a book. However, these resources were not always available on the internet but were even around before its time. When discussing how cheating has evolved over time, it is necessary to talk about the emergence of new mediums. Before the internet, paper copies of Cliff Notes were available for certain books, however you would have to go out and buy them in order to read them. This was very useful for people at the time because it was the only medium available, but from the view of someone who has grown up with the influence of the internet, this seems very inconvenient. I would rather look up the book on the internet and have the notes right in front of me for free than go out and buy the notes from a store. The websites allow students to have access to summaries, notes, and annotations for free, which, for students, is very advantageous.
However, my teachers in high school did not regard using Spark Notes or Cliff Notes as cheating as long as we had read the assigned work and were using it for our annotations or to study before our tests. This was very useful for me because I could get quick annotations for the books we read, which ultimately made studying easier. Spark Notes and Cliff Notes have created a stereotype for students in today’s generation. If teachers or professors find out that their students used one of these resources, they might think of it as a form of cheating. Spark Notes and Cliff Notes are a great tool for many students but it also poses as a concern as some teachers do not like it.
Even today, there are new ways to cheat. The use of smart watches, such as the Apple Watch, has become a very popular form of cheating in recent times. On the Apple Watch, you are able to pull up documents and websites to use to cheat. The Apple Watch is a quick and easy way to cheat. As long as you have the notes or document on your watch, one is easily capable of cheating. Due to the Apple Watch being so small sometimes teachers and professors may not catch their students cheating.
