<p>bad or good idea? the books will be for histroy, calc, chem and a writing seminar</p>
<p>sure. Why not?. As long as the year it was published is new enough...</p>
<p>Well, unless its been completely trashed and peed on, i don't see how it would be a bad idea</p>
<p>It's a very good idea, most of the time you'll end up just selling the books back to the bookstore anyway.</p>
<p>its a good idea. as a bookseller on amazon, i can tell you that alot of books are sold at a steep discount because people are looking to get rid of their old textbooks from the previous school year. you can also try other places like your college bookstore or other websites like ebay.</p>
<p>depends. If you can go to the bookstore and pick the least used of the used options (but still pay the used price) you will get a book in better shape. If you're ordering online, you have to trust the seller's description of the book. When I buy online, I always buy new to avoid this, and usually the prices are the same as the bookstore's used price anyway.</p>
<p>If you do buy used, make sure that you're getting the correct edition, and double check that your school doesn't have a custom print or some other special thing that you're required to have if you're thinking about buying used books online.</p>
<p>Definitely buy used. I have generally had very good experiences buying online, and I have pretty high standards (I don't buy books that already have writing or highlighting). Amazon is pretty good--I've bought dozens of used textbooks off of Amazon and never have the books been in worse condition than the description alleged. I have never used half.com but I have heard good things about it.</p>
<p>isnt there the chance it will be written on all over, how do i know if it will be or not ?</p>
<p>New books cost a fortune. Wouldn't it make you feel a tiny bit bad to ask your parents pay for tuition, room, board, give you spending mone, and also pay for textbooks that you insist on having new???? And if you're taking out loans and are doing work-study and all that, then I don't know how you'd be able to waste money on new books instead of used. If it's the correct edition and can be read, save your money and buy books used! That's what I'm doing.</p>
<p>BTW, so Amazon does a good job having the books you need? I've ordered DVDs and presents for people that I can't find in a store on Amazon-and was very happy with the result-but do they always have the exact books you need?</p>
<p>i can testify that half.com is absolutely amazing. my books would have cost anywhere from $500 to 700 at my school bookstore, but on this website i got all my books except like, 3 workbooks, for just a little under $150. and, theyre all like new even tho theyre used</p>
<p>How important is it to get the most recent edition of a book?
Can you just get a relatively recent one and be OK?</p>
<p>What are the differences in editions?</p>
<p>yea i got all 5 of my books from half.com and would highly recommend them. its awesome!! i got all five books for like 140 bucks and they are all like new two of them actually were brand new still in shrink wrap. half.com all the way</p>
<p>i don;t know about other schools but sometimes they change the edition from one year to the next. It probably won;t make that big a deal but just realize that before u buy.</p>
<p>if they are in good condition. I would buy new books for the books you will want to keep, like as a reference book, especially those books in your major. Otherwise, I would just get used.</p>
<p>depends on the class. A political science book, for example, probably won't change that much. But a classic change between editions is changing around the problem sets at the end of the book, which is a huge problem if you're in like a science or math class. If you're doing the wrong problems, that's not good.</p>
<p>Yeah, you want to have the right edition if it's a problem set class.</p>