Study Aids?
You are in an undergraduate college Literature course. Your university prohibits academic dishonesty, which includes plagiarism, copying the work of others, and other conduct that undermines the academic objective of the assignment.” In addition, your professor has also reiterated this policy in their syllabus. Your professor wants you to write a literary analysis—not a research paper—on a difficult literary text that many students struggle to understand upon reading.
There is no direct mention by the professor to not consult the wealth of “study aids” found online which are readily available, open, and free to anyone. They can provide synopsis, theme information, and in some cases, papers written by fellow students and even published journal articles by scholars in the field. You read as much of these as possible to better understand the literary piece you will be writing about. You then proceed to write your paper, and submit it.
Have you done anything unethical? Why or why not?