hi guys,

I've heard alot about purchasing used textbooks as early as possible, but not so much about the importance of getting the right edition of your textbook. Is buying the right edition of textbook overrated and to some degree unnecessary? Instead of buying a sixth edition calc textbook, is it wiser to purchase a used fifth ed, for example?

Thanks in advance!

I know that in some cases the editions don't even differ all that much (maybe 1 different article. Thats it.) I remember a course I took where the book had two editions... the newer one just had more photos... but the text was identical to the previous edition (which cost 50% the price).

Sometimes there is maybe 1 article missing from the new edition that you are required to read. Simple.. get the old edition but ask your friend for his new edition when you need to read that particular missing article

You basically need to compare the editions, and ask the prof if the older edition is going to work out. They will know, since they've picked the material from the textbook and have it planned out.

It does really depend; I had one textbook where the new edition was an additional 300 pages. Thankfully we got the old edition...but we couldn't sell it afterwards, which really sucked.

Textbooks teach the same thing, in fact, I find a lot of the time that there are better textbooks out there for the exact same stuff in our courses. However, the main thing is that you understand the material in your course notes, and supplement that with stuff from notes. A lot of the time the prof will get paid to promote the book, and so they uselessly promote an expensive book, which really is not that great. I've found that out of my textbooks in 2 years, only about half the textbooks are even needed to be bought, and the main function of those was to reiterate a point a prof made. My mom is a Prof and says that she sees so much in the way of Prof's uselessly assigning new editions for no reason other than personal financial gain.

At the same time, there are some unfair profs who like to test you on how well you can memorise parts of textbooks, I had one last year. One question on the final was "In chapter 6, the author claimed that around____ of children are from single family homes and of those ___% end up in juvenile detention."

But what I'm trying to say is that there are some classes where a textbook is definately needed: math classes definately, also other stuff where practice questions will help, but if you are in a social science/humanities/commerce stream, theres no need to waste money and buy brand new textbooks. Concepts don't change, and profs are most likely to put readings in the Custom Courseware. Plus we live in the age of internet, where there are better profs teaching similar courses and you can find their lectures online. It's how I got through half of second year.

@dbt10

I didn't know that profs were rewarded for promoting certain textbooks. That would be very sad if it's true :( I figured that they just picked the best textbooks they could find that were best for the students. I know custom courseware is overpriced, but the textbooks I've had to buy have been fairly decent over the past two years so far.

I know at Mac at least, there is an incentive (read: $) for profs to use publications that include profs from this institution, as well as those that are published by a company related to McMaster.

Or so I was told by a prof of mine two years back.