As students go off to college or university - some for the first time - they should take heed! Students need to be wary of the latest editions of textbooks - especially given how much textbooks cost. Students should always ask whether 'latest edition' means the same as 'up to date'. The assumption is that this is the case - but this assumption is wrong! Students often feel obliged to buy the latest edition of a textbook lest they miss out on some vital bit of information missing from an older ‘out of date’ edition. But is passing or failing ever down to just one bit of information present or absent from a textbook?
Some textbooks recommended for the courses with which I have been associated have gone through new editions three or four times in as many years! No academic discipline can claim to have been revised or updated that often - let alone in such a brief space of time.
Textbooks may change rapidly but academic disciplines change very slowing - and some seem to change rarely. Some fundamental details never change. What does change is a textbook’s layout and presentation; how publishers what it to look. Headings (and typesettings) may change; diagrams and tables may be added, removed or modified; page numbers may change accordingly. None of this reflects a major change in learning or fundamental course content. If any ‘major’ intellectual development did occur between editions it would be big news. Lecturers would certainly know about it and change their teaching material to suit. They would even emphasise the fact. (What lecturer would not want to be seen discoursing authoritatively on the latest big discovery?)
So beware before you spend. Ask yourself, Why do academic libraries keep old editions of books if they are always so flawed? Why are previous editions of a textbook not all pulped the moment a new edition appears? Why are they sometimes donated to poorer, third countries? When we ask questions like these, we see things quite differently.
