 My friends, I am Arpita Karwa and in this video lecture I am going to talk about some best websites that you can use if you are preparing for UGC Net English. Guys, gone are the days when people used to say that a person needs to read hundreds of book if that person wants to clear any competitive exam. Now, clearing exams have become very easy with the help of Google Baba because you know there are so many important things that Google provides you with and Google helps you with. I am not saying that books are not important. Books are indispensable. I have already made a video on must read books and books that will help you if you are preparing for UGC Net. But there were so many other people who are asking me that are there any web resources? Are there any websites that we can use in order to clear exams? So I thought of making this video and sharing my experience and my kind of websites or my favorite websites that I refer when I was preparing for UGC Net. So guys, first of all, let's look at what is the benefit of using Internet if you are preparing for UGC Net English. The first benefit is that it is very less time consuming. Guys, I have seen books having hundreds of pages or at least 20-30 pages are devoted to an important writer or to other things. But if you are using Internet, you might find all the relevant information in an article which is written in less than 500 words. So it will save a lot of your time. Also reading all those books and then skipping things or then sometimes we want to write down certain important things. So you don't have the option to copy and paste. You need to actually write everything down which is time consuming. So using Internet, you will have one important benefit and that is that you can copy and paste the important things and you can make your own notes. I used to always use Evernote and still when I make my notes for the UG Online course that I am offering for UGC Net English aspirants, I kind of make all my notes on computer. I have so many other softwares that I use in order to make good notes so that I can easily explain those notes in my audio lectures. So computer will help you, Internet will help you to save your time. Second important thing is that information is really easy to find on Internet. If you have a book of 400 pages and you want to actually go to a particular writer or go to a particular section, it will take a lot of your time. You need to just keep on turning the pages and then you might have to read the entire thing in order to figure out where that particular line was that you were searching for. But on the other hand if you are using Internet, you can bookmark all the important things. Then you can actually, you know, you can easily find things from hyperlinks. If you go to Wikipedia, you will have so many hyperlinks. You just need to click to that hyperlink and you will be able to understand the meaning. Then there are so many other softwares which can actually help you to know the meaning of a particular word. Like when you are reading English literature, you will come across at least one new word in every paragraph that you are not familiar with. So with Internet, you just need to click and you need to see the meaning. With books, you have this thing that you need to actually go to Internet or you need to go to your mobile phone and then type that word in the dictionary and then that word meaning will come out. So that is how Internet helps. The third important thing is you will get variety of options. See, when you are reading from one particular book, you just have one particular kind of article or one particular kind of answer that is written there. And you might or might not understand what is written in the book or you might have certain confusions when you read the summary of a novel or a poem which is given in that book. But on Internet, you can refer to so many places and you can read summary multiple times from multiple sources that will help you to retain better and also help you to understand better because sometimes you are not able to understand one particular language. Problem faced by me when I was studying, David Deitchies did not make sense to me. Okay? It was a kind of alien book to me. I thought I was reading some German or French text. But then on the other hand, Routledge, I preferred William J. Long. I preferred other books than, you know, David Deitchies. But then when it comes to theory and criticism, I was not able to understand anything from the books. Okay? Books made sense once I understood the concept from Internet. And then when I read all the important things that were written in the book, I was able to understand. So for understanding, Internet helps you a lot because in Internet, the people who have written, they are like you and me. Okay? They are writing in a very conversational language. The books that have been written are written by very good scholars or very well-read people. So somewhere down the line, they have kind of made things complicated but then they cannot help because they have read so much that they are trying to, you know, tell you all the things in the most simplest manner. But still they kind of complicated because of the kind of knowledge that they have. They assume that we already know certain things. Like when you are reading David Deitchies, you might come across certain historic milestones which they have not explained. Because David Deitchies somewhere thought that literature students must be aware of that thing. But from our point of view, sometimes we don't know about those things. So that becomes difficult. So that is why Internet is very important. Also at the same time in this video, I am going to share my favorite websites that I used when I was preparing for UGCnet. And one thing I would like to tell you, I did not use one particular website because not a single website is self-sufficient in itself. You need to go to at least four or five websites in order to understand about a particular writer and to actually know all the important things, all the important relevant information about that writer. Some website will give you something, other website will give you other things. Also I kind of used some other websites which I was not aware of while I was preparing for my UGCnet. But then when I started with my audio online course, I had to read more in order to deliver the best content to students. So I referred to some other websites. So you can just go through this entire video and keep on noting down the websites I am mentioning and then start your preparation accordingly. So the first important website is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is important because of three reasons. Number one, it provides you with almost all important information. For example, all the references, adaptations of that particular work, then critical comments given to that particular writer. All important stuff is there in that Wikipedia page of that writer or that work. The second important thing about Wikipedia is that Wikipedia is there for almost every writer in every work. Like I hardly came across any important writer or any important work whose Wikipedia page is not there. So it will actually help you with searching content because you will at least get some stuff on Wikipedia. The third important benefit of Wikipedia is that they are very good with hyperlinks. They will have hyperlinks so you don't need to go anywhere else. You can just click on that hyperlink and you will be directed to the page on which that information is displayed. One other important thing about Wikipedia is they are very good at providing chronological order of works. Like after the biographical information and critical comments and everything, they will have a list of all the works of a particular author written in a chronological order. So if you want to remember all the works in the chronological order, then Wikipedia is a page to go. Now Wikipedia has some negative points also. Number one, sometimes we find that summaries are not very good on Wikipedia. Like they complicate summaries, I don't know why, but then they have this thing that if you are reading a summary from Wikipedia, there were times when I was not able to understand the summary at all. It used to sound so irrelevant that I was not able to understand it in a single word. But then there are times when summaries are very nicely written. So I am talking about the cases when summaries are not useful on Wikipedia. So another important negative point of Wikipedia is that they are too lengthy. If you look at the Wikipedia page of great writers like William Wordsworth and Shakespeare, you will be overwhelmed to see the kind of information they have. They have written everything and it is too huge. So we get fed up and also we are able to segregate important information to the unimportant information. So we are not able to segregate that what we need to focus and what we need to leave. Now let's come on to the second important website that is Britannica's Encyclopedia. Now Britannica's Encyclopedia can be used as a supplement to Wikipedia because the best thing about this website is that they sometimes provide certain important things that Wikipedia misses. So you will get that extra edge when you are reading Britannica. Also very important thing is that they are very short and sweet. They will give you all the relevant information in just a limited number of words. So it is not at all time consuming and it saves a lot of your time. Also one negative point of Britannica is that they are bad with summaries as well because in Britannica most of the time you will not find summaries and even if you find it the same case that we just saw in the case of Wikipedia, the same case happens because somewhere or the other summaries do not understand. So that is the negative point. I will keep on telling you the positive and negative of each and every website so you know where and which website to locate if you are looking for a particular kind of information. Also I would recommend that what I used to do is that I used to open all these websites on different tabs in the same browser and I used to read same writer from all these websites because after you read about 7-8 websites and content from 7-8 websites about this particular writer, you are very through with that writer. Like you have all the points on your tips but at the same time it is very important that you keep on making notes of all the important points that are listed on different websites because students make this mistake, they will read the writer from different website, they will read the works from different website but then they will not make notes and if you don't make notes the information will vanish and you will not even know where it has gone. If you have learned about Bermuda Triangle, I sometimes feel as if when we don't make notes the information goes into the Bermuda Triangle and we are not able to find it ever. So it is important that you should know how to make notes. I have already made a video on how to make notes. You can refer to that video and look at certain important things that I have mentioned there. The third important chunk of website that I would like to mention is Cliff Notes, Park Notes and Great Saver. I am categorizing them all in the same category because all of them almost function similarly. They all are written by literary scholars and students who are studying in some great universities. So they are very up to the mark and they are written from the point of view of literature so they will provide you with information that is relevant from the point of view of literature. Also at the same time one very important benefit is that they have quizzes like all three of them will have quizzes after the end of each work and that quiz will help you to test how much you were able to retain. At the same time they are very good at providing themes, symbols, motives, characters and they even provide act by act, scene by scene or chapter by chapter summaries. So that is important about Cliff Notes, Park Notes and Great Saver. Really the one drawback I found in these websites that there are certain texts which do not have good pages like there are certain texts which do not have material available on Park Notes or they are incomplete material. Also one other important thing that I would like to tell you that sometimes you have to read the same summary from all the three sides because if you are reading the overview summary you might not be able to understand it from one source. That was the problem faced by me. I don't know whether others face it as well but then I used to have this thing that sometimes if I am reading the same summary from one place I was not able to understand it thoroughly. So I need to read it from two, three places more. Now I come to my favorite website that is study.com like I will try to make it as simple as I can. They are the masters like they are simply fabulous. I subscribe to their premium course which was about 5000 piece per month because I was struggling with literature a lot when I was preparing for NET. There were terms which I was not familiar with. I was pathetic at history like the part Tudor Dynasty and Russian Revolution and World War. I did not knew all these terms before. So I found that study.com's biggest feature is that they simplify the concept in such a simple manner like they make it so easy for the student to understand and the module structure through which I prepare my students for the UGC NET exam the audio online course that is available on my website. It has been inspired from study.com because if you go to study.com they have this beautiful systematic way in which they teach each and every course like I did five six courses there I did the world literature I did world American literature I did the world history course I did British literature course and I also did this literary theory and criticism course I did the rhetorics and prosody course and there were so many minute courses like I wanted to know about Christianity how did it emerge I wanted to know about how this Greek civilization and Greek gods and all these things function okay I was able to understand each and everything from study.com I will make it as simple the only drawback is that it's very expensive because you know they have made it a you know a very large platform to provide courses so they are expensive it's like about 5000 per month but at the same time the benefit is that you will be able to understand each and everything but beware of this thing it will only clear your concept you might not get any information which is relevant from net point of view they are not preparing you for net so they would not give you information about net but they will conceptually clear all your doubts so that when you read the summary or work from other places you are able to catch it in just a minute so in my audio course also I have taken a lot of material from study.com because they have made it so clear and I try to explain all the things that are being listed in study.com also there are several other websites just like study.com we have edX we have Yale University but from my side I would recommend study.com so the next site that I would like you to remember is Shmoop and there is also a video channel which is run on youtube called Thug Notes okay so you can refer to both these things Thug Notes and Shmoop they all run on the same platform and they kind of provide similar content so both of them use slang language and swear words and you know some really funny allusions and really funny references in order to make you understand things effective point about both these things are that they help you to develop interest like I used to hate literary criticism and theory but it was after reading literary theory and criticism from Shoop that I you know started loving it and it is only after learning something from Shmoop I you know took time to actually understand each and every concept that was listed in the literary theory and criticism module you can refer to my video on literary theory in which I have tried to explain and give you a crash course in literary theory it's available on my youtube channel so the best part about Shmoop is that it will help you to develop interest in whatever you are reading sometimes we feel really you know not feeling like learning at that time Shmoop will help you because somewhere you know it it reads like a conversation and it feels as if somebody is actually saying that to you so it's so easy to read that you feel like reading it and you feel happy when they crack some humorous jokes and sort of that thing the negative aspect about Shmoop is that it is not at all an authentic site it will give you information which is not at all relevant and it will not help you to clear net I'm telling you it will only help you to actually understand the concepts or it will help you to develop interest the next website that I would like to refer is book rags now the benefit of book rags is that they have super simple summaries they have summarized things in a very very nice manner and their study lessons are extremely wonderful the only drawback is you need to pay for each lesson okay they don't have a membership of monthly or yearly membership but you need to pay for each lesson which is a bit costly I subscribe to like almost all their lessons because when I was preparing I was preparing with this mindset that I would be teaching all these things to students so I wanted to get into the depth and I wanted the best content so that I could read them I can understand it and then I can deliver that to students so I subscribe to almost all the lessons on book rags and I share that in my online course also when I'm explaining you things and you already have a book rags subscription you might find that I'm quoting some lines from book rags because it actually explains things so clearly another important website that I would like you to sign up is enotes enotes and lit charts I would categorize both of them under the same category because enotes and lit charts I subscribe to both of them but I used to refer to these two websites only at certain occasions okay they were only certain areas where I used to find their content extremely wonderful and I used to see that their content actually out shines all the other website but that was only at few places and at few literary milestones so if you wish you can subscribe to lit charts as well as to enotes they are wonderful when it comes to literature and they give you such clear and proper answers that you know you're able to find out you shout like you're okay I understood what they are trying to say so that's it other than that there were so many other places from which I took help like there were so many youtube channel like random youtube channels from which I like there are certain foreign students who review a certain book so I used to read their book reviews in order to understand more about that book then there are certain channels on philosophy and on sociology and psychology from that I used to understand about the theoretical gurus all those literary theory people I used to refer to those youtube channels for them also at the same time I refer to some other websites like in order to understand quotes and in order to make a list of all the important quotes I used to refer to the site called brainy quotes so it will also help you all these sites that I have mentioned will provide you authentic information and you don't need to recheck it from anywhere else they give you authentic information I am not sure about schmoop because it has been written in a very vague manner but other than schmoop every other website that I have referred will give you proper and authentic information so that's it about this video lecture we'll be meeting in our next video very soon till the time stay tuned to my channel also if you haven't subscribed then do subscribe to my channel because I post videos every Saturday and every Sunday to help net aspirants to clear their UGC net exam you can follow me on all the social media platform because I'm running this go net quiz which will definitely be helpful if you are preparing for net exam at the same time don't forget to comment below if you want me to make videos on anything else do share your views about how you like this video and share it with other net aspirants as well if you have not gone and visited my website do go to arpitaakarwa.com you'll find a list of all the important writers that you must study if you're preparing for net exam under the heading online course content you will find all the links of all the social media platform and my website in the description box below so till the time we meet next happy learning keep loving literature and stay tuned to this channel