Using old edition textbooks (1 Viewer)

[Vermilliona]

Hi everyone,

Just wondering if anyone can give me some advice as to whether purchasing the newest edition of law textbooks (specifically Nemes and Coss’ Effective Legal Research and Laying Down the Law) is worth it. I'm not sure how much editions change and am thinking I might just get the second last edition (i.e. one that came out a year or two ago) but I'm not sure if this would make things harder for me - would really appreciate some insight!

Thanks in advance

 

[JJ1993]

Hi everyone,

Just wondering if anyone can give me some advice as to whether purchasing the newest edition of law textbooks (specifically Nemes and Coss’ Effective Legal Research and Laying Down the Law) is worth it. I'm not sure how much editions change and am thinking I might just get the second last edition (i.e. one that came out a year or two ago) but I'm not sure if this would make things harder for me - would really appreciate some insight!

Thanks in advance

Best person to ask would be your unit chair or lecturer for every unit. Some are okay to use, some or not. It really depends.

 

[neo o]

Best person to ask would be your unit chair or lecturer for every unit. Some are okay to use, some or not. It really depends.

For most people textbooks are more of a study reference prior to exams.

Don't use old editions if they're older than 3+ years or if they cover an area of law that changes yearly like tax. Don't use old legislation, just go to the source online, though you'll miss out on annotations which can be helpful. The page numbers in your course guide will be off, so you'll need to do a little more work, but if you're missing anything substantial you can always cross-reference with the current edition in the library.

Honestly, you could probably get away with not buying either of those two and just reading the library copies.

 

[Aerath]

Hi everyone,

Just wondering if anyone can give me some advice as to whether purchasing the newest edition of law textbooks (specifically Nemes and Coss’ Effective Legal Research and Laying Down the Law) is worth it. I'm not sure how much editions change and am thinking I might just get the second last edition (i.e. one that came out a year or two ago) but I'm not sure if this would make things harder for me - would really appreciate some insight!

Thanks in advance

For those two subjects (I presume they're USyd subjects), old editions are fine.

For something like Corporations Law, or Admin, or even Torts or Contracts, you would need more up to date stuff, bc particularly for Corps or Admin, the law changes every year.

 

[wannaspoon]

Don't use them... I know someone you used it in a Corporations Law exam 2 years after the Australian Consumer Law legislation came into force...

Long story short, he never rocked up to lectures and tutorials, answered everything to a tee, used the Trade Practices Act instead of the ACL... failed the exam...

He was really, really bright... Too much marijuana though... hahaha...

I personally never relied on textbooks anyway... got the closed reserve ones from the library for assignments... you find that the law is very, very process orientated... You can pretty much sum it all up in a few pages of flow charts (with detail and things to prompt you so you can critically evaluate it all, of course)... It's actually incredibly easy looking back at it...