Don't buy that used book!

Nursing Students General Students

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Specializes in CCU, Geriatrics, Critical Care, Tele.

Be careful on buying used books online. Many may be outdated. Many descriptions will not be truthful on state of book. If you need to buy a used book online make sure it has a return policy. Have tips to share? Please share with the community...

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Ha that's funny. I always wait to hear from the instructor. Sometimes the instructor doesn't care if it's a previous edition and you can save some major $ that way.

Chegg has awesome deals and their used books are very decent, not missing any pages or writings on them.

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Heh! Brings back not-so-fond memories of my Potter & Perry Fundamentals book I bought "lightly used" from an etailer. It arrived in several unidentifiable pieces. . .

If you wanna save money, go for PDF/e-text versions. Burned retinas are worth it for the search function alone!

I've been buying and selling textbooks on amazon for years now and have saved a ton and have never had an issue (still a funny cartoon though!). These days renting and e-versions are often available but I still prefer to buy so that I can sell later.

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Also Amazon now has free 2 day shipping for students.

Specializes in Maternal Child, Home Health, Med/Surg.

Honestly, I say double check with instructors. Most of them are able to be reached prior to class starting. Like with my Microbiology instructor, she allowed us to get the previous generation because there wasn't a big difference.

Also, use trusted sources. Abebooks is pretty good, as is Amazon. :)

90% of my books thus far (in my last semester) have been used books and I've had no issues. I've even had previous editions and what I do is take a photo of someones new book table of contents (because the chapters are sometimes a little different) and just match it up to my book and get the same info. It's worked quite well for me thus far and I've saved hundreds of dollars

Specializes in Pedi.

I think I bought ONE new book in my entire 4 years of college. I barely opened them anyway.

I buy from allbookstores.com, which is a search engine of used books including amazon and all the major ones. I find international editions are extremely cheap, and the ISBN can be compared with the current US edition on the publisher's own web site in most cases. Never have had any issues with it and have saved hundreds of dollars.

I ALWAYS buy a previous edition and never had a problem.

I bought almost all of my books used from Amazon this semester and was highly impressed. I bought by ISBN to ensure that it was the edition that I needed.

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