College book question........What is the difference between newer editions of a college text book (buying, price)

[deeds]

....wondering what difference is betwen newer editions of college text books......ex. what would be the difference between an 8th edition version of a book as oppossed to the 9th edition version........

[VeradoDan]

Price.

There may be a few subtle changes but save yourself the money and get whatever version is cheaper.

[Informed Info]

Sometimes information has been added or taken out, same information but on different pages. Sometimes, as in a math textbook, problems may be different.

My Father worked for Macmillan after he graduated from college, so when he was in his early 20's. He sold textbooks to college professors who, back in the day, would receive a kickback for ordering the latest and greatest editions. He hated the job because of this and only worked for them for a year.

[brook2ga]

Sometimes there are corrections or additional info.

[SweepTheLeg]

8th edition: World Trade Center is there.

9th edition: World Trade Center is not there.


In all seriousness, it all depends on the book. You can't make a blanket statement that there are just minor changes when there may not be.

A good guide is to see how many years have elapsed between editions.

[camaro69]

In most cases it's just to suck more money out of the college student. Therefore not allowing them to buy used books or share.

Tell me why in Gods name does some college books cost $200?

Nothing but blood sucking.

[Informed Info]

Originally Posted by MPBsr

In most cases it's just to suck more money out of the college student. Therefore not allowing them to buy used books or share.

Tell me why in Gods name does some college books cost $200?

Nothing but blood sucking.

The most expensive book I had to purchase when I was in college was my Business Law textbook. I bought it with the intention of taking the class my first semester. To make a long story short I didn't actually take the class until the second semester. In the meantime the professor had decided the newest edition of the book would be the one used for the second semester. I was out $150.00 because although there were some changes the changes only seemed to be in the cases used as examples (which of course affected the numbering of pages as some were longer or shorter). There was no way to get around using the book I already had purchased and no one to sell it to.

It's one thing to change editions on a yearly basis. Changing editions in between semesters is just mean.

[BobKovacs]

Depends on the book- some will have just corrections from one edition to the next, while others will have entire chapters added/deleted. I'd go with the latest edition, unless you want to risk having the wrong information.

I teach a building code class that's based on the 2006 version of the code, yet I have students who try to save a few bucks by buying the 2003 version. There are HUGE differences, and if they use the 2003 code to answer test questions, they do very poorly.

[Viralmd]

What does this have to do with NJ?

[mgt04]

Depends on the subject as well. With math and engineering and science, the basic fundamentals have remained unchanged. History can always be updated with newer information since history is constantly being made.