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So for criminal law in Spring the course textbook is, of course, a new edition going for a mere $186.00. The slightly older edition is going for $7.00 on ebay in good condition. I've purchased the older edition. What am I missing here? Do they add cases in new editions? Do I lose anything by just looking up any new cases there may be on Westlaw? Why don't more people do this?

BeaverHunter wrote:So for criminal law in Spring the course textbook is, of course, a new edition going for a mere $186.00. The slightly order edition is going for $7.00 on ebay in good condition. I've purchased the older edition. What am I missing here? Do they add cases in new editions? Do I lose anything by just looking up any new cases there may be on Westlaw? Why don't more people do this?

Crim is a pile of garbarge, so you very well might be okay (outside of having no idea what the professor is assigning unless you get a real copy from the library). I'd say the main determining factor would be if your prof wrote/edited the textbook?

Usually, no.

First semester I bought all new books and since then I've gone used whenever possible. One edition older is usually close enough that there's no real difference.

Why don't more people do it? Because they don't want to have other peoples writing and highlighting in their book. A lot of people say they can't learn if they're not the ones highlighting. I don't mind it much. Sometimes its actually helpful to read what other people wrote in the margins. Sometimes its annoying or distracting. I had a book this year where the person had crossed out all words that I guess she felt were unnecessary. So every time an opinion used the word "clearly" she actually blacked out the word so it was practically unreadable. That was kind of a distraction, but to me its never been worth $100+ not to get used books.

ahduth wrote:

BeaverHunter wrote:So for criminal law in Spring the course textbook is, of course, a new edition going for a mere $186.00. The slightly order edition is going for $7.00 on ebay in good condition. I've purchased the older edition. What am I missing here? Do they add cases in new editions? Do I lose anything by just looking up any new cases there may be on Westlaw? Why don't more people do this?

Crim is a pile of garbarge, so you very well might be okay (outside of having no idea what the professor is assigning unless you get a real copy from the library). I'd say the main determining factor would be if your prof wrote/edited the textbook?

Yeah, so I'll just photocopy the table of contents from the current edition and be good for assignments I suppose. The whole textbook industry is a racket that I'd prefer not to support.

Ludovico Technique wrote:First semester I bought all new books and since then I've gone used whenever possible. One edition older is usually close enough that there's no real difference.

Why don't more people do it? Because they don't want to have other peoples writing and highlighting in their book. A lot of people say they can't learn if they're not the ones highlighting. I don't mind it much. Sometimes its actually helpful to read what other people wrote in the margins. Sometimes its annoying or distracting. I had a book this year where the person had crossed out all words that I guess she felt were unnecessary. So every time an opinion used the word "clearly" she actually blacked out the word so it was practically unreadable. That was kind of a distraction, but to me its never been worth $100+ not to get used books.

Okay. I thought I was weird in that I do no highlighting or underlining or whatever. You're a strange step beyond.

I always but the old edition. 4/6 times I've done it it had exactly the same cases. One of the two was.missing two small cases. The last was civ pro, it was missing the landmark case. So maybe buy the new civ pro.

PROTIP #14: books published by west have edition changes in a word doc on west's website. i.e., they will literally list the differences between the new and old editions. i.e. new cases, new/renumbered problems, discussions, etc. and sometimes its such a minor change u'r like WTF.

for example:

http://www.westacademic.com/Professors/ ... 3586&tab=1

look @ the updates memos

You can get new textbooks for almost the same prices as used ones. I got almost all of my books using combinations of half.com coupons for just a little more than people who went to the bookstore and bought raggedy old books.

http://www.bigwords.com is your friend. Learn how to use it ftw.