<p>I'm always hesitant to buy "required" textbooks. So many times have I bought "required" textbooks that were never or rarely used. I try and put off buying textbooks until the first/second week of school, but sometimes that doesn't always work out.</p>
<p>What's the best way to find out whether supposed "required" textbooks are actually required?</p>
<p>Read the syllabus, ask the professor, ask students who have taken the class in the past, look at the course website of a past year’s course or other courses that the professor has taught (do they homework assignments refer to the textbook?)… Or simply get a copy of the textbook from the library instead of buying it. I haven’t bought a single textbook since my sophomore year.</p>
<p>Dude, just make ur own textbook. Its easy with a few cardboard boxes and tape and college ruled paper.</p>
<p>I usually just wait until we actually get assigned readings from the textbooks to go and buy them. For example, I took a French lit course last year that required about ten books, but we ended up only using seven or so because the professor missed a few classes. Since I hadn’t bought those other three, I was pretty happy about that. Of course, your best bet would probably be talking to students who’ve taken the class before.</p>
<p>Sometimes its difficult to track down students who have taken the course/professor before. </p>
<p>Would students be willing to review textbooks in the context of their specific course and professor? Amazon book reviews lack the context that students can give to textbooks as they have first hand experience using a given textbook with a specific professor. </p>
<p>Would these kinds of textbooks reviews be helpful to other students in the same “required” textbook predicament?</p>
<p>I just wait till a few weeks have gone by in the semester.</p>
<p>I’ve never really been one to buy textbooks. my first semester I only bought the math book because I needed the code for the online assingments. Needless to say we never once used the book itself. I did buy a spanish book as well, just because I don’t see how you can pass a foreign language class without the book. Last semester however I didn’t buy any books and I did just fine. Today all my teachers really stressed that without the books you won’t do well in the class so i’m probably going to buy them, but only if I can find them for cheap prices. I’ve already found one for 25 dollars.</p>
<p>The Syllabus should tell you if you’ll need the book or not. If you see a lot of required reading and class discussions based on said readings AND the teacher mentions that he’ll be doing pop quizzes based on the readings, you might wanna by that book.</p>
<p>try to buy the older version of the textbook whenever possible, it’s always much cheaper</p>
<p>one of my professors required a new 6th edition of a textbook, i looked online and found the 5th edition and compared both of their table of contents and searched through random pages, and both books were literally the exact same except for a “case studies” which were updated according to current events in the new version, but they aren’t important at all and are never actually read. i ended up saving 120 dollars just from buying the older version of that textbook on amazon</p>
<p>Would a website focused on allowing students to share how a specific “required” textbook was used in their class with their professor be helpful? A pseudo textbook review but with added context, if you will.</p>
<p>Are you trying to hype up/gain target feedback for some new textbook venture you’re working on? Because all of your topics are on this subject.</p>
<p>Good catch.</p>
<p>I’m not necessarily hyping anything, if anything I’m on a fact finding mission. As a student myself, I’ve come across an issue that plagues many students. I have a solution in mind, and want to see whether there is merit to it. </p>
<p>Additionally, the solution won’t work without contributors, so testing the waters is important before investing too much, too early.</p>
<p>Very interesting. Not judging, just prodding :)</p>
<p>@Horsey </p>
<p>You’re very welcome to share your opinions, I’d like to get everyone’s two cents on the issue/idea.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-life/1204177-would-you-review-your-textbooks-help-out-other-students-2.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-life/1204177-would-you-review-your-textbooks-help-out-other-students-2.html</a></p>
<p>Flustard - how do you intend to make money from this venture? Students are unlikely to pay to subscribe, profs will not pay you (maybe they would pay you to be NOT included!), textbook companies certainly won’t…</p>
<p>Good question, stradmom.</p>
<p>These “contextual textbook reviews” in itself, is not intended to be a money-making venture in itself, if anything it would be a value-added community tool for other things I have planned. These reviews will work hand-in-hand with my “big vision.”</p>
<p>I never planned to make money from these “reviews” at least not from a paid subscription, publishers or professors. These reviews would be freely accessible, just like Amazon’s product reviews are free.</p>
<p>Besides, it wouldn’t be fair to ask for feedback and reviews from its target user group, and then telling them that they need to pay to access them.</p>