The Internet is a beautiful thing. Not only has it provided a generation of procrastinating college students with e-mail, Instant Messenger and MP3s, but students rarely have to exert more energy than moving a mouse to do research or find the answer to any question.

Our parents sang the virtues of a good dictionary and thesaurus, our older brothers and sisters revealed the secret of "Cliffs Notes." But today it may actually be possible to graduate from Notre Dame without opening up a reference book or setting foot in the library. Why bother walking across campus when everything you need can be found online?

The only catch (despite what your professors might tell you) is that you simply need to know where to look. For the wealth of information that the Internet provides, there is an equal amount of useless junk or pure trash to be found on many dot-coms.

Thus the smart student — or the student who knows how to get by on the least amount of work — has to know where to go to find answers to life's big questions. Questions like, why bother reading Hamlet when someone else can write me a synopsis? Or, how can I pass out of my Spanish requirement without ever actually learning to write in the language?

Of course, the dedicated intellectuals at Notre Dame and Saint Mary's would never be the type to slack off in their studies. But occasionally, drastic times call for drastic measures. And it's always better to know where to look for help. Among the many Web sites that claim to have the answers to all your class-related questions, a few stand out in terms of quality, ease of use and completeness.

SparkNotes.com

For students desperately seeking easy answers to the most pressing academic problems, SparkNotes.com is the best-known and most complete Web site. With an easy-to-navigate format, SparkNotes operates much like Yahoo! and other search engines.

Categories range from physics and philosophy to biology and literature. Or if you're not even sure which subject your question falls under, you can use the generic search option to find what you're looking for.

Founded in 1999 by young Harvard graduates Maxwell Krohn and Sam Yagan, SparkNotes.com is best known for its study guides on great works of literature. These SparkNotes are much like their older siblings, the similarly named "Cliffs Notes:" for more than 200 books, a study guide provides information on the work's historical context, a description of each character, chapter summaries and a section of study questions.

Lest you confuse them with "Cliffs Notes," however, SparkNotes boasts that their study guides are written not by ancient professors or academics, but by Harvard student and graduates who all specialize in the subjects they cover.

Regardless of whether this is supposed to make you identify with the hip, young SparkNotes or make you envious of the Harvard grads who have the cushy job of dumbing down Shakespeare for the rest of America, SparkNotes prides itself on the completeness and quality of its literature study guides.

SparkNotes.com provides more than the much-abridged works of Joyce and Milton, however. The site also markets itself to confused chemistry and biology majors, offering simple explanations of topics like stoichiometry and cell respiration. For those baffled by calculus or economics, Spark-Notes.com puts important equations and formulas at your fingertips.

Some of Spark-Notes.com's quirky sections include "Biography," where you can learn the details of JFK's childhood and Stalin's rise to power. The category on Kaplan test preparation provides information on every test that could possibly decide your future: the LSAT, the MCAT and the GRE.

For those who need a quicker answer to their academic woes, SparkNotes.com offers a helpful side bar with reference materials, including a dictionary, a thesaurus, a calculator, maps and a periodic table. Students of foreign languages can use the translator to write back and forth between Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and English.

Aside from its academic seriousness, SparkNotes.com has a lighter side as well. Under the "Relax" category, stressed-out students can enjoy articles about famous college dropouts and the origins of the dunce cap.

Another amusing feature is the SparkNotes KnowledgeCam. More than a webcam, this device allows Internet junkies to watch students studying and hear their thoughts at the same time, according to SparkNotes.com. After about 20 seconds of watching Ben, Justin, Porter or Boomie study and reading their random thoughts, even the most dedicated slacked will return to the books out of sheer boredom.

Overall, SparkNotes.com is a complete reference Web site for every college student. It provides simple, clear information, and while it may not have all the answers, it sets a solid foundation.

Dictionary.com

This Web site is the delight of every arts and letters professor. And it's not so bad for students who don't want to shell out $40 for Mr. Webster's book, either. Dictionary.com's main purpose is obviously clear: at the top of the page you can type in any word and instantly find its meaning, pronunciation and origin. While this is a helpful tool for anyone writing a paper, the Web site offers much more than a simple dictionary search.

Dictionary.com is (surprisingly!) linked closely to its counterpart, Thesaurus.com, and users can easily switch back and forth between the two. If you've ever found yourself banging your head on your keyboard trying to come up with just the right word, the thesaurus option is for you. And it prevents any nasty paper cuts that might arise from flipping through an actual book to find synonyms and antonyms.

English majors are not the only ones who will feel at home at Dictionary.com. The site offers dictionaries of all kinds: medical, scientific, geographical and foreign languages.

Dictionary.com also offers a translator tool, with the added feature of translating entire Web pages simply by typing in the site's address. As with all foreign language translation programs, however, it is always best to check closely what the computer gives you, as the translation is by no means guaranteed.

Dictionary.com provides its own diversions, with daily crosswords, word search puzzles, and a Word of the Day which can even be subscribed to by e-mail. With resources like writing tips and grammar, usage and style guides, Dictionary.com is a site to bookmark for composing those brilliant, late-night papers.

iTools.com

While not as well known as other Web research sites, iTools.com is a surprisingly complete resource for students. The site contains many different kinds of information, but a well-structured format makes it easy to navigate.

From its homepage, iTools.com offers three basic services: Language Tools, Research-It! and Find-It!. Find-It! is a standard search engine, but the other two sites boast a variety of academic resources.

Language Tools is similar to Dictionary.com, offering English and foreign language dictionaries and thesauruses, language translators and rhyming dictionaries. An unusual feature is a link to AllWords.com which allows you to listen to a pronunciation of the word you look up.

Research-It! is iTools' largest collection of Web resources. Under "Library Tools" you can hunt for inspiring quotations to begin a paper or look up the lives of the rich and famous by searching through a biographical dictionary. The section on geography links you to maps of American streets and countries all over the world.

Two other unusual sections include "Financial Tools" and "Shipping and Mailing Tools." Here iTools can convert American dollars to any foreign currency and look up stock market symbols and prices. If you know the tracking number to a very important package, you can use Research-It! to chart its progress by typing in the tracking number.

Itools.com does not offer the slick packaging or humorous diversions of SparkNotes.com, but it still boasts a large collection of research resources on the `Net. With a clear layout and dummy-proof search options, iTools provides quick, simple answers all on one Web site.

FreeBook-Notes.com

In addition to SparkNotes, there are many other sites that offer free literature study guides, including Bookrags.com, PinkMonkey.com and GradeSaver.com. While these sites vary in the number and quality of the Cliffs Notes-like synopses they offer (and all seem to play off of SparkNotes' claim to be written by Harvard grads), there is one Web site that brings all the sites together.

FreeBookNotes.com has earmarked all the (supposedly) reputable book summary sites and built up a listing of all the available titles. The site lists over 200 books, from "Invisible Man" to "Native Son." Once you choose a title from the alphabetical listing, FreeBookNotes.com provides links to every site that offers literature notes or chapter summaries on the work. Some sites like PinkMonkey.com require registration before you can access their study guides. Others like Bookrags.com and CampusNut.com offer complete, well-written guides that rival SparkNotes.com and "Cliffs Notes."

While FreeBookNotes.com can be a valuable resource, linking beweildered students up to pages that can clear up their literary problems, it is always inportant to remember reading the abridge notes (or worse, writing an entire paper off the notes) is never a good idea. Not only could it border on plagarism, but every good professor can see through it in an instant. Drat.

Encarta.msn.com and Britannica.com

Of the many encyclopedias available online, Encarta and Britannica are two of the most complete. The well-known Encyclopedia Britannica offers a thorough search option, providing full-length articles on any topic, as well as pictures, movie clips and sound bytes. The Web site has an easy-to-use format, with categories on Art and Entertainment, Science and Technology and History and Humanities. These sections offer in-depth articles on current and controversial issues — an excellent resource for papers on history or ethics.

On Encarta's Web site, the search begins by typing in either a keyword or a question you want answered. This option, much like the AskJeeves.com gimmick, can provide more specific answers to general inquiries.

Be warned though: many searches will return links marked by astericks. These entries require registration to Encarte Online Deluxe, only available if you have the Encarta Reference Suite on CD-ROM or DVD. While the deluxe version offers 25,000 more articles than the free version, it is still bothersome for those looking for a quick, free search.

Encarta.msn.com includes additional reference tools — dictionaries and atlases — while offering the same special-interest articles that Britannica.com offers for indepth research or browsing. Both Web sites return similar entries for general searches and the multi-media features that accompany many articles set these Internet encyclopedias apart from their ink and paper counterparts.

At the rate the Internet continues to grow and become mainstreamed into American households, the trend of the future will continue to place books and reference materials online.

While librarians may bemoan the dwindling numbers of students that walk thourgh their doors, the resources available online for college students makes it all too tempting to work from the comfort and ease of a dorm room.

But no matter how much information or easy ways out that Web sites seem to promise, reading the SparkNotes or the Britannica.com articles will never be a substitute for the real book.

So if your eyes are bleary from an all-nighter and you start to panic because you know you'll never finish that seven page paper in two hours, fire up the Internet and start searching. Fast.

But you can't always rely on those supposedly brilliant Harvard writers to do your work for you.

• Calculators and drug selling lessons
  
• Homework got you stumped? Help is just a mouse click away