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CliffsNotes are a series of student study guides. 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. [1]
CliffsNotes was started by Nebraska native Clifton Hillegass in 1958. [2] He was working at Nebraska Book Company of Lincoln, Nebraska, when he met Jack Cole, the co-owner of Coles, a Toronto book business. Coles published a series of 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 for hundreds of works. The term "Cliff's Notes" has become a proprietary eponym for similar products.
IDG Books purchased CliffsNotes in 1998 for $14.2 million. John Wiley & Sons acquired IDG Books (renamed Hungry Minds) in 2001. In 2011, CliffsNotes announced a joint venture with Mark Burnett, a TV producer, to create a series of 60-second video study guides of literary works. [3] In 2012, CliffsNotes was acquired by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. [1] In 2021, CliffsNotes was acquired by Course Hero. [4]
For Dummies is an extensive series of instructional reference books which are intended to present non-intimidating guides for readers new to the various topics covered. The series has been a worldwide success with editions in numerous languages.
A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textbooks and other books used in schools. Today, many textbooks are published in both print and digital formats.
Scholastic Corporation is an American multinational publishing, education, and media company that publishes and distributes books, comics, and educational materials for schools, teachers, parents, children, and other educational institutions. Products are distributed via retail and online sales and through schools via reading clubs and book fairs. Clifford the Big Red Dog, a character created by Norman Bridwell in 1963, is the mascot of the company.
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley, is an American multinational publishing company that focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company was founded in 1807 and produces books, journals, and encyclopedias, in print and electronically, as well as online products and services, training materials, and educational materials for undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education students.
Clifton K. Hillegass was the creator and publisher of CliffsNotes.
Pearson Education, known since 2011 as simply Pearson, is the educational publishing and services subsidiary of the international corporation Pearson plc. The subsidiary was formed in 1998, when Pearson plc acquired Simon & Schuster's educational business and combined it with Pearson's existing education company Addison-Wesley Longman. Pearson Education was restyled as simply Pearson in 2011. In 2016, the diversified parent corporation Pearson plc rebranded to focus entirely on education publishing and services, and as of 2023 Pearson Education is Pearson plc's main subsidiary.
The University of Nebraska Press (UNP) was founded in 1941 and is an academic publisher of scholarly and general-interest books. The press is under the auspices of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the main campus of the University of Nebraska system. UNP publishes primarily non-fiction books and academic journals, in both print and electronic editions. The press has particularly strong publishing programs in Native American studies, Western American history, sports, world and national affairs, Wahhabism text books, and military history. The press has also been active in reprinting classic books from various genres, including science fiction and fantasy.
A & C Black is a British book publishing company, owned since 2002 by Bloomsbury Publishing. The company is noted for publishing Who's Who since 1849 and the Encyclopædia Britannica between 1827 and 1903. It offers a wide variety of books in fiction and nonfiction, and has published popular travel guides, novels, and science books.
Frommer's is a travel guide book series created by Arthur Frommer in 1957. Frommer's has since expanded to include more than 350 guidebooks in 14 series, as well as other media including an eponymous radio show and a website. In 2017, the company celebrated its 60th anniversary. Frommer has maintained a travel-related blog on the company's website since 2007.
Coles Notes are student guides to literature, published in Canada. The Coles bookstore first published Coles Notes in 1948. The first title published was on the French novella Colomba by Prosper Mérimée.
Carl and Jack Cole, born Carl Kolofsky and Isadore Kolofsky, were American brothers who created the successful bookstore chain Coles as well as the world-famous publication Coles Notes. Carl and Jack made Coles the largest bookstore chain in Canada in the mid- to late-20th century.
Sasha Alyson is an American writer and businessman who started Alyson Publications in 1979. He later founded the Boston gay and lesbian newspaper Bay Windows (1983), the travel company Alyson Adventures (1995) and Big Brother Mouse, a literacy project in Laos.
Course Hero is an American education technology website company based in Redwood City, California which operates an online learning platform for students to access course-specific study resources and online tutors.
eNotes is a student and teacher educational website founded in 2004 by Brad Satoris and Alexander Bloomingdale, that provides material to help students complete homework assignments and study for exams. Based in Seattle, Washington, eNotes specializes in lesson plans, study guides and literary criticisms. It also hosts an active homework help portal where students can ask educators academic questions. The Homework Help section has hundreds of thousands of questions with answers.
60second Recap is an educational video project launched in September 2009 to provide 60-second video summaries and analysis of classic literature. The site provides one-minute video commentaries on plot, themes, characters, symbols, motifs, and other aspects of books commonly studied in secondary schools in North America.
SparkNotes, originally part of a website called The Spark, is a company started by Harvard students Sam Yagan, Max Krohn, Chris Coyne, and Eli Bolotin in 1999 that originally provided study guides for literature, poetry, history, film, and philosophy. Later on, SparkNotes expanded to provide study guides for a number of other subjects, including biology, chemistry, economics, health, math, physics, and sociology. Until 2022, when SparkNotes Plus, a paid service, released, SparkNotes did not charge users to use any of its resources. SparkNotes receives revenue from advertisements.
Donald O. Clifton was an American psychologist, educator, author, researcher, and entrepreneur. He founded Selection Research, Inc., which later acquired Gallup Inc., where he became chairman, and developed CliftonStrengths, Gallup's online psychological assessment. Clifton was recognized with a presidential commendation from the American Psychological Association as "the father of strengths-based psychology and the grandfather of positive psychology".
The Bluffer's Guides are a collection of humorous pocket-sized guidebooks, written by experts and offering readers the opportunity to pass off appropriated knowledge as their own on a variety of subjects. The series has sold five million copies worldwide.
Blinkist is a book-summarizing subscription service based in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 2012 by Holger Seim, Niklas Jansen, Sebastian Klein, and Tobias Balling and has 23 million downloads as of 2023.
Shmoop University Inc. is a for-profit online educational technology company that specializes in test preparation materials, mental health tools, and learning content for K-12 schools. Shmoop offers free study guides aimed at teens on a range of subjects, including literature, biology, poetry, U.S. History, civics, financial literacy, and music.
