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Textbooks

Guest1
edited July 2008 in General
Anyone got a any tips on buying used textbooks?

I'm an incoming first year and have realized that the ISBNs don't help at all in verifying if you're buying the right textbook a lot. Apparently you can have the same title or something but if it's the wrong edition then it won't work? How do I know if I'm buying the right textbook or not? I don't want to waste money buying a new one when I could have bought a used book for less, yet I don't want to buy the wrong book, of course.

I'm going into CMNS 110 and someone in this forum wanted to sell me a CCW text from Spring 08 but the text I needed was "Intro into Communication Studies." I even emailed my prof, S. Poyntz, but he said "I'm not sure what the 2008 CCW book is" but the seller took his class! On mysfu, the textbook doesn't have a price or used price... could that possibly mean that it's so completely new that they haven't even found the right price for it yet?

Since I need 19 books, I want to be sure I'm buying the right books. I'm mostly worried about verifying my CMSN 110 and CRIM 101 books, I think my HUM 101 and HUM 102 pretty much use the same books almost every term since they're like, history stuff.

Comments

  • xxk1nky
    edited July 2008
    They're all listed on my.sfu.ca, ISBNS, editions, prices and all; it's all there. If it doesn't have a price or anything, it may just come with the textbook when you buy it. But that's weird... CCW's are usually bought separately and way cheaper than the textbook.

    Buy them before school starts too. Try to get used books or buy them off people to save yourself some money.
  • Guest1
    edited July 2008
    They don't have the editions for me... but then again sometimes the books don't even appear. Some people say that the authors and other info are usually listed, but right now I only have the book names and most of the prices.
    What are the CCWs exactly? Are they textbooks? It tells me nowhere that I need CCW...

    I want to get some of my HUM books early so I can get a head start reading some of them. There's no chance of the book list suddenly changing, right?
  • primexx
    edited July 2008
    the ISBNs should give you the exact book you need, afaik different editions have different codes
  • Kingsley
    edited July 2008
    yeah... like primexx said. ISBN's usually works for me too.
  • xxk1nky
    edited July 2008
    summerheaven;34152 said:
    They don't have the editions for me... but then again sometimes the books don't even appear. Some people say that the authors and other info are usually listed, but right now I only have the book names and most of the prices.
    What are the CCWs exactly? Are they textbooks? It tells me nowhere that I need CCW...

    I want to get some of my HUM books early so I can get a head start reading some of them. There's no chance of the book list suddenly changing, right?
    CCW stands for Custom Course Ware. It's pretty much a textbook made specifically for that course at SFU. Some professors have CCWs, but not all do. It's usually a good idea to get them.
  • randomuser
    edited July 2008
    you dont buy custom course wares used, i thought they changed from semester to semester
  • Guest1
    edited July 2008
    Aren't all ISBNs different though? They change every semesters or something? So the ISBNs I have right now will only match with new books, and not old books?

    On mysfu it doesn't say anything about custom course wares though, so I'm not sure what to do about that...
  • randomuser
    edited July 2008
    look ill be pretty blunt:

    the chances of you buying the wrong textbooks is significantly low...in the bookstore the books are arranged by course and prof, so youll be able to just look at the shelf and grab it, you neednt be concerned with stuff like ISBN or editions, the bookstore wont sell old editions of textbooks if its in use the term youre looking at

    i make a list first, and then confirm my list with what the section of the shelf says, all i do is look at my.sfu and write down the name, and go and match the name in the bookstore

    are you sure your 19 books are required, and some arent reccomended? or are they cheap ones? generally i spend 300-550 in textbooks a term, sometimes less if i take a lot of distance ed
  • Morro
    edited July 2008
    Yeah, just in the bookstore physically, find your courses, buy the books that are labelled "Required." Done. If there's books labelled "recommended," give them a pass, and see what the prof has to say about them in the class. You can always grab them later.
  • collegestudent
    edited July 2008
    summerheaven;34166 said:
    Aren't all ISBNs different though? They change every semesters or something? So the ISBNs I have right now will only match with new books, and not old books?

    On mysfu it doesn't say anything about custom course wares though, so I'm not sure what to do about that...
    isbn's are the same for every text that is the same edition. they only change when a new edition is put out, it has nothing to do with sfu, rather the publisher.
  • Guest1
    edited July 2008
    I want to buy used textbooks though, from people on this forum or on facebook or something.... They're usually cheaper than the used textbooks SFU sells.

    randomuser: Yes, I need 19 books... and I'm pretty sure that none of my classes even have recommended textbooks. It's because of my two HUM classes, I need 10 for HUM 101 and 6 fror HUM 102. mysfu only lists required books anyways, right?

    collegestudent; yeah, I know that, it's just that I heard that sometimes past semesters have used different editions. Do the editions really matter? If edition 5 is out would it be fine if I use edition 3?
  • Alex Shih
    edited July 2008
    ^ E-mail your professor to confirm.

    Let me know if you need CMNS textbooks.
  • randomuser
    edited July 2008
    i find it more of a hassle to be used from other people than used at sfu, but if you really want to save the money go for it
  • Guest1
    edited July 2008
    Alex: In my first post I already mentioned that I e-mailed the professor and he didn't give me such a great answer... he said he didn't know what the Spring 2008 book was, yet the person selling it to me used it in his class.
    I need a CMNS 110 textbook, "INTRO TO COMMUNICATION STUDIES(CUSTPUB)"

    randomuser: I'll probably end up getting half of my books at the SFU bookstore, most of them seem to be too hard to find =_=
  • Tina
    edited July 2008
    summerheaven;34201 said:

    collegestudent; yeah, I know that, it's just that I heard that sometimes past semesters have used different editions. Do the editions really matter? If edition 5 is out would it be fine if I use edition 3?
    I think using a third edition book in lieu of a fifth edition book would be stretching it, but you'd probably be fine with the fourth edition. Check what years the books were published in order to get a sense of how far apart the material may be from one edition to the next.

    Off-topic: I think I recognize you from LJ, Soompi, Mallvibes, etc XD
  • Guest1
    edited July 2008
    ^lol... really...? I use a diff username for LJ and soompi though.
    Well, for LJ, i use my photobucket summerheaven to post pics so maybe that's why?
    and for soompi have two accounts but i ditched one because someone was stalking me or something.... so i stopped posting and became a lurker on another account and resumed posting on the new account lol =d
  • Tina
    edited July 2008
    Your usernames on LJ and Soompi are _xxxxxdream and xxxxxhope right?

    I recognize your LJ name because you're the only other person on the Vancouver community who posts with an anime icon XD

    Some of your Soompi sales post pics were the same as your LJ ones - that's how I recognized you XD
  • Guest1
    edited July 2008
    Hahha I haven't been on LJ for a long time... i went to check it out today =p I make/use my own icons on LJ... i use other peoples' everywhere else XD

    You mean my soompi survey?? Hahhaa... i've stopped selling things online.... too much effort XD I'm getting so damn lazy... and I'm quitting my job... I'm prolly gonna sleep all day until school starts XD

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