These are good questions, Kent. I must say I was a little surprised when I bought your incredible book to see that it contained so many plot summaries. Personally, I find it more useful (generally) to get the kind of overview of criticism and critical evaluation that is in the MT Encyclopedia (and even though the encyclopedia is uneven, some of the very best MT scholars are in there, and their articles on various works are often excellent). I also appreciate the bibliographies they give for individual works. That said, it's been useful to me to read the plot summary of a short work to remind me of something, and especially useful to find something in a longer work ("Now just where is that little story in _A Tramp Abroad_?"). And as to students, Kent is right that there are already plot summaries out there--not only Cliff's and Monarch's, but also in reference books like McGill's in the library. That's usually only for major works, so Kent's summaries of the shorter and lesser works are the only things out there. Myself, I don't worry too much about students relying on plot summaires. The first and only time I resorted to one (might have been Moby-Dick in the 11th grade), I found them so boring and I retained so little that I went back to the novel. I don't use quizzes in my teaching, so I don't worry about that. (I have students write response questions either in or out of class, questions that would be difficult or impossible to answer from plot summaries.) BTW, please don't misconstrue my comments above as any disparagement of Kent's excellent book. I find his achievement incredible! I was just saying that on individual works, I usually find the MT Encyclopedia more useful than MT A-Z for what I want. But on many other topics, I find Kent's book better. I'm glad I have both, and I'm really glad both exist.