When to use SparkNotes for a Magister Artium

Master's
I spent this afternoon being productive thanks to the Phinished community. I keep on being surprised at how much it helps to know and feel that you are not the only sucker that has committed yourself to finishing a dissertation. I still envy people who have a taught Master's since it seems that being taught would be much less effort than playing Rumpelstiltskinwith your ideas (trying to turn straw into gold or loose ideas into a coherent Master's).

Rumpelstiltskin
by H. J. Ford

Occasionally another kind of alchemy is required. I've read and reread my primary sources over and over. I should know everything off by heart by now, but still my brain sometimes turns into straw. In computer terms, I made a file for MA and just dumped all the information in there. My internal search engine doesn't always work. Which introduces us to our good friend SparkNotes.

I used to be a lecturer before I accepted government employment and capitalisation and became a Language Editor instead. This means that I know all the arguments against SparkNotes. I even wrote a rant in a test feedback after what seemed like millions of second-year scum (who wanted to become teachers) decided that it was just too difficult to read the play or failing that the Charles Lamb summary. If you really want to read the rant, you can find it here. It is not necessary to read between the lines to see I was disgruntled and annoyed.

However, at Master's level I think SparkNotes are incredibly useful when techno peasant brain indexing fails. Since I'm comparing Jane Austen's novels to that of E.M. Forster I keep looking for links until the boundries between the novels break down and I am left with characters trying to sneak into each other's books. My latest problem was inflammation in the Austens. Does Eliza Bennet or Marianne Dashwood fall in love with Willoughby? It's Marianne. Then what is the name of the ungrateful blister (it doesn't help to read P.G. Wodehouse in the bath neither) who slanders Mr Darcy?

Once the people in the books manage to run amok in my brain good old SparkNotes comes in useful. The students are correct - it is much quicker to consult notes than to plough through the novel. In my case the novels are strewn throughout the house as I move my writing space. SparkNotes solves the Austen problem: Eliza admires George Wickham. And the notes also quickly point out that Mrs Moore in A Passage to India has, by another marriage, a daughter named Stella and a son named Ralph (I was convinced his name was Henry or John). The factual inaccuracies also do not bother me since I know the novels. I can disdainfully sniff at plot analyses and move on.

In short, SparkNotes is a telephone book with the full names and surnames of characters. The notes also contain the address or name of the novel from whence the character escaped.