CliffsNotes
 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification.(April 2021) |
CliffsNotesare a series of studentstudy guides.The guides present and create literary and other works inpamphletform 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.[1]
History
[edit]CliffsNotes was started byNebraskanativeClifton Hillegassin 1958.[2]He was working atNebraska Book Companyof Lincoln, Nebraska, when he met Jack Cole, the co-owner ofColes,a Toronto book business. Coles published a series of Canadian study guides calledColes 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 sixteenWilliam Shakespearetitles. By 1964, sales reached one million Notes annually. CliffsNotes now exist for hundreds of works. The term "Cliff's Notes" has become aproprietary eponymfor similar products.
IDG Bookspurchased CliffsNotes in 1998 for $14.2 million.John Wiley & Sonsacquired IDG Books (renamed Hungry Minds) in 2001. In 2011, CliffsNotes announced a joint venture withMark Burnett,a TV producer, to create a series of 60-second videostudy guidesof literary works.[3]In 2012, CliffsNotes was acquired byHoughton Mifflin Harcourt.[1]In 2021, CliffsNotes was acquired byCourse Hero.[4]
See also
[edit]- 60second Recap
- BookRags
- Coles Notes
- Enotes
- Letts and Lonsdale
- Masterplots
- Schaum's Outlines
- Shmoop
- SparkNotes
- York Notes
References
[edit]- ^ab"About CliffsNotes".CliffsNotes.RetrievedJune 20,2015.
- ^Herman, Daniel (December 9, 2022)."The End of High-School English".The Atlantic.
- ^"CliffsNotes Goes Digital".American Public Radio. Archived fromthe originalon July 27, 2011.RetrievedMarch 10,2011.
- ^"Online education unicorn Course Hero buys CliffsNotes".Silicon Valley Business Journal.RetrievedAugust 21,2021.
External links
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