CliffsNotes: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 00:29, 25 February 2021

Revision as of 09:00, 7 March 2021

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[[File:CliffnotesRomeoAndJulietCover.jpg|thumbnail|150px|CliffsNotes for ''Romeo and Juliet'']]

'''CliffsNotes''' (formerly '''Cliffs Notes''', originally '''Cliff's Notes''', and often, erroneously, '''CliffNotes''') are a series of [[student]] [[study guide]]s. The guides present and create literary and other works in [[pamphlet]] form or online. Detractors of the study guides claim they let students bypass reading the assigned literature. The company claims to promote the reading of the original work and does not view the study guides as a substitute for that reading.<ref name="about" />

== Company history ==

CliffsNotes was started by [[Nebraska]] native [[Clifton Hillegass]] in 1958. He was working at [[Nebraska Book Company]] of Lincoln, Nebraska, when he met Jack Cole, the co-owner of [[Coles (bookstore)|Coles]], a Toronto book business. Coles published a series of [[Canada|Canadian]] study guides called [[Coles Notes]], and sold Hillegass the U.S. rights to the guides.

Hillegass and his wife, Catherine, started the business in their basement at 511 Eastridge Drive in Lincoln, with sixteen [[William Shakespeare]] titles. By 1964 sales reached one million Notes annually. CliffsNotes now exist on hundreds of works. The term "Cliff's Notes" has now become a [[Generic trademark|proprietary eponym]] for similar products.

[[International Data Group|IDG Books]] purchased CliffsNotes in 1998 for $14,200,000. [[Wiley (publisher)|John Wiley & Sons]] acquired IDG Books (renamed Hungry Minds) in 2001. In 2011, CliffsNotes announced a joint venture with [[Mark Burnett]], a TV producer. This would be a series of 60-second video [[study guide|study guides]]s of literary works.<ref name=marketplace>{{Cite web|title=CliffsNotes Goes Digital|url=http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/03/10/pm-cliffsnotes-goes-digital//|access-date=2011-03-10|publisher=American Public Radio|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727192539/http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/03/10/pm-cliffsnotes-goes-digital//|archive-date=2011-07-27|url-status=dead}}</ref> In 2012, CliffsNotes was acquired by [[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]].<ref name=about>{{Cite web|title=About CliffsNotes|url=https://www.cliffsnotes.com/discover-about|website=CliffsNotes|access-date=20 June 2015}}</ref>

== Other guides ==

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* [[SparkNotes]]

* [[York Notes]]

== References ==