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Imagine yourself going to see a show. The cushy red seats. The talented orchestra. The body odor and animal abuse. Not what you pictured? Be thankf...

Aren't midsummer night dreams the worst? You wake up all sweaty and gross, and for a minute there, you can't even remember where you are. And also,...

We're not sure if good ol' Shakespeare would endorse The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, but that's not going to stop us from hosting themed viewing...

In Poe's raven's defense, he probably only knew that one word...

This video summarizes Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The Raven—in rhyme. This first-person poem follows the narrator’s descent into madness as he tal...

Sure, Edgar Allan Poe was dark and moody and filled with teenage angst, but what else does he have in common with the Twilight series?

It's the roaring 20s. A time of wealth, partying, and a huge inequality gap. Fun, fun, and, uh...not-so-fun. Hit play to discover more about the se...

East Egg: East coast, old money, and ponies. Maybe unicorns. Those snotty East Eggers won’t tell us anything. West Egg: West coast, new money, an...

Wait. Tom and Daisy have a kid? Huh. ...Did anyone tell them that?

Well, if this book doesn't make you want to tape over your laptop camera, we don't know what will.

Brave New World is supposed be an exciting book about a negative utopia and the corrupt powers of authority. So where’s the big car chase? What's...

Are humans civilized, or are we just savages waiting to come out? William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies tackles that question.

Well, if this book doesn't make you want to tape over your laptop camera, we don't know what will.

By the end of this video, you will be brainwashed. There's nothing you can do about it; we just wanted to let you know. We like to think we're bigg...

Imagine a world in which all literature was dystopian. Okay, so we may be getting to that point, 1984 and V for Vendetta helped start it all.

How did Scrooge go from being naughty to nice so quickly, and why? (Hint: contrary to popular belief, it has nothing to do with the ghost of Santa...

The house may be bleak, and so will your social life when you take on this epically long novel. Dickens is pretty hip, though, so you'll earn some...

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is about a young blacksmith boy (Pip) and his two dreams: becoming a gentleman and marrying the beautiful Est...

What are the perks of being a wallflower? Shmoop amongst yourselves.

One video to rule them all. One video to find them. One video to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. Or something like that. The Lord of...

Have you ever read a book and thought, "Whoa, this sounds like my life"? If you feel that way about The Fault in Our Stars, you're in for some majo...

This video covers the top ten things to definitely not do in an essay and provides some tips for how to avoid them. Plagiarism and disorganization...

We like to say that the first step toward asking a good question is marinating in your thoughts. Uncle Bob's BBQ chicken isn't any good unless it h...

You should probably know what kind of essay you're writing before you actually start writing it. Just like you should probably know where you're go...

What is Gothic Romanticism? It's when two goths fall in love. Duh. Wait, that’s not what it is? Oh. We should probably watch the video and figure...

Dracula, Dorian Gray, and Bertha Mason are the cool kids on the block when it comes to Gothic literature. We’re in full favor of them starting a...

Ugh, John is just like Catherine from Wuthering Heights, always thinking he’s so much better than we are. All he’s missing is a house on a spoo...

We’ll preface this video about Frankenstein’s preface by saying that Mary Shelley is an awesome woman, and she wants everybody to be aware. Che...

Dearest Shmooper, Watch the video to find out more about the epistolary, layered, narrative of Frankenstein. Or watch a cute kitten video on Yout...

Imagine Frankenstein characters as zombie/werewolf hybrids: one side wants brains, the other hearts. How to choose? Also, what to name them? Zomwol...

Mariners back in the day sure knew how to bust a rime.

Imagine Frankenstein characters as zombie/werewolf hybrids: one side wants brains, the other hearts. How to choose? Also, what to name them? Zomwol...

Ode on a Californian Shmoop.

Yes, there are kites. Yes, there are runners. No, despite how much we love running and flying kites, this isn't a happy story by any stretch of the...

If you're still eating pie on a regular basis, you probably haven't read this book or seen the movie. If you have and it hasn't swayed you...well,...

One minute, we're crying out of sadness; the next thing you know, we're crying out of laughter. Arnold's diary puts ours to shame. Excuse us while...

Who is it about? Who told it? Who wrote it? Who are we? What’s the meaning of life? Do you know the Muffin Man? All these answers and more can be...

Old English is just English, right? Can’t be more difficult than reading Shakespeare, right? Hah. Yeah...no. Click on the video to find why tra...

Want even more deets on Comma Splices? Click here to review. Or take a look at our entire grammar section for all the goods.

Want even more deets on ellipses? Click here to review. Or take a look at our entire grammar section for all the goods.

The hyphen is used in all sorts of different situations, from making compound words to uniting adjectives to joining prefixes to words that have to...

We love scribbling as much as the next person, so we decided to scribble together about lines! Enjoy!

Ah, the Pythagorean Theorem. Pythagoras’ masterpiece. All his other theorems pale in comparison to this one.

So what's our angle? We want to help you learn about angles. Really—that's it. Shmoop has distilled our angle knowledge into a short video that w...

In the beginning, God created Shmoop. How else could we have been there to give you this first-hand account of everything that went down back then?

You've been warned, Jerry. You've been warned.

Well, the world has ended, which is a total bummer. We didn’t even get a chance to sell our super valuable Beanie Baby collection. We hope you’...

The Road is full of emptiness and nobody knows where they’re going. So make a note to self, Shmoopers: when the apocalypse hits, grab a GPS.

Always read The Road with a dictionary at hand, because you’re going to need it. Seriously. We’re not known to be perfidious (though we do have...

Their eyes might’ve been watching God, but our eyes are watching Zora Neal Hurston. Hit play to learn more about Hurston and the Harlem Renaissance.

Their Eyes Were Watching God is about Janie’s coming of age story towards the path of self-discovery, just like Luke from Star Wars. Seriously, J...

So ye be wantin’ to learn more about vernacular? Arrr...then keep a weather eye out...and...wait. This book wasn’t written in pirate vernacular...

Solving two-step equations can be tricky, but at least they’re easier than doing the Texas Two-Step. We trip over our feet so often you’d think...

If you have to solve a multi-step equation, you might as well do it with fractions, right?

Equations of circles are a no-brainer. If aliens can do it, so can you. All you do is substitute the center of the circle's coordinates into the eq...

Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty, and sex, can have any god or man that she desires. Yet she ends up alone, with no one she truly loves at al...

If you ever crush on someone so hard that their dad turns them into a tree to escape your attention…maybe it's time to reevaluate your flirting t...

When deciding which battlefield causes more pain—love or war—all we need to do is ask, WWAT? In other words, "What Would Ares Think?" We're all...

Readers may be already be familiar with Dracula, but what about the mathematician and author, Bram Stoker? And yes, he graduated with a degree in m...

Vlad the Impaler was an appropriately named guy, until he went on tropical vacations. Then, he went by Vlad the Imtanner. For some facts that are a...

Looks, wealth, and a super cool castle to live in… Well...maybe not live in, if you happened to be Dracula. But for the most part, this guy had...

Without a thesis statement, you don't have a paper. Watch this video, and get the inside scoop on how to write a killer thesis statement.

A strong thesis is crucial for a good essay. But how do you structure a great thesis statement? If you’re watching this video, you’ve come to t...

The London Bridge may be falling down, falling down, falling down....but your essay will be one stalwart structure that stands the tests of time.

ACT English: Punctuation Drill 1, Problem 1. Choose the correct punctuation for this sentence.

ACT English: Punctuation Drill 1, Problem 2. How should we format this list?

ACT English: Punctuation Drill 1, Problem 3. Is that comma being used correctly?

We get it: Jennifer Lawrence is awesome. We think so, too. That being said, we wouldn't actually want to see her killing other kids in a bloodthirs...

It's not your everyday teenager that volunteers to enter a fight to the death, but then again not every teenager has a cool name like "Katniss Ever...

We volunteer you as tribute to watch this video analysis of Katniss in the second book of the Hunger Games series. After the berry suicide attempt...

Ready for a horror story that isn’t about a bad hair day? Pick up a Southern Gothic novel like Moby-Dick or As I Lay Dying instead. Though now th...

Call me Shmoop...er, we mean, Ishmael. It’s time to catch a whale. ...Just kidding, we’ll read about it instead. The WWF told us we can’t d...

What’s our place in the universe? Sometimes, we find ourselves looking at the sky, pondering where we belong. Then, a voice softly whispers, “i...

Worried about adding and subtracting fractions? Never fear. It's so easy that it will only take up a fraction of your time: just use multiplication...

This video explains how to convert between decimals, percents, and fractions. All three of these languages are just different ways of showing parts...

Converting percents to decimals is easy: just move the decimal point two to the left. Yep, that's it. To the left, to the left... convertin' th...

This video explains what dangling modifiers are and, more importantly, how to avoid them. It provides a useful formula for using a modifying phrase...

Want even more deets on Different From vs. Different Than? Click here to review. Or take a look at our entire grammar section for all the goods.

This video covers how to use either/or, neither/nor, and both/and. How do these word pairs change the meaning of a sentence? Do we use singular or...

No busque una palabra negativa. Sino una palabra que pueda ser positiva. Tales son "no se caiga", " no molestes a tus maestros" "no se coma toda...

Si alguna vez te encuentras en una balsa flotando en el río Mississippi, usted va a querer hacer algo. Lectura clásico de Mark Twain, Las aventur...

Moby-Dick - una ballena extraña. Nuestro amigo capitán Ahab la había perseguido para años, pero no es el mejor lider en el mundo. Piensas que p...

AP Psychology 1.1 History and Approaches. Which of these men was a German scientist who studied the human mind through introspection?

AP Psychology 1.2 History and Approaches. The study of the unconscious mind to explain behavior is referred to as psychoanalysis and was developed...

AP Psychology 1.4 History and Approaches. Who would agree with the following statement?

Meet the Shmooples. They live on Planet Frisbee, where there is a lot of inequality. Of the arm and Starburst variety, mostly.

Solving inequalities using blob fish? Yes, please!

This video explains the difference between affect and effect and provide tips for remembering which is which and when to use each one. If you suffe...

Want even more deets on Assure/Ensure/Insure? Click here to review. Or take a look at our entire grammar section for all the goods.

We really want you to watch this video. Badly. It's not bad, we swear.

What is the difference between market value and book value? These two figures describe what a company is worth. Book value does this by finding the...

Curious to find out what angle these guys are playing? Check out this video. You’ll have angles coming out of the wazoo.

We know what you came here for—you want to hear the latest interview with the hot starlet, Polly Gon. Well, we've got the scoop for you. She's re...

Unlike anything that enters the Bermuda Triangle, Exterior angles can be found—in more than one way. This video covers how to use the remote inte...

Dear 23B, Life is hard enough as it is, so stop being such a jerk, or we’ll throw airline peanuts at you. ...Oh. Is that not a nice thing to...

Stuck on an abandoned island with your buddies? Guess you better learn to cooperate. Otherwise, no one will be able to get back to civilization and...

You’re hanging with your pals and you just can’t decide...Star Wars, or My Little Pony? So you ask if everyone can cooperate and make a new sho...

GED Math: Expression and Equations Drill 3, Problem 4. What are the roots of the quadratic equation?

GED Math: Expression and Equations Drill 4, Problem 2. Which of the following inequalities should Jabari solve in order to determine the values of...

GED Math 5.4 Expression and Equations. Which of the following answer choices correctly solves for x with the quadratic formula?

Would it be necessary and proper for Congress to mandate a national nap time? Probably not, but we wouldn't mind it.

The Constitution of the United States is the highest law in the land: it's a written statement of the core principles of the American government. I...

Ever heard of a "living document"? They eat and breathe just like the rest of us! They even walk around on their own two legs. Okay, fine—maybe t...

ACT Math Pre-Algebra: Drill 3, Problem 5. Simplify the expression.

GED Math 1.2 Rational Numbers. Reduce the fraction.

Shmoop can get behind anything that helps you eat pie.

This video can run circles around other videos about circles. Sir Cumference, of Round Table fame, explains all the properties of… well, circles....

It's super useful to be able to find the distance around stuff. Like when you’re being pursued by authorities while running around the base of an...

Time to learn about the area of a sector. And no, that's not the sector's bedroom with a bumper sticker on the door that reads, "GO AWAY."

Multiplying polynomials is as easy as saying multiplying polynomials ten times fast.

This was Barack Obama’s original campaign slogan, but it didn’t test all that well with the voters.

The Bill of Rights was made to protect Americans from too many restrictions and regulations in addition to ensuring our well-being under our govern...

The Constitution of the United States is the highest law in the land: it's a written statement of the core principles of the American government. I...