Public Domain
These are two words that essentially mean one thing: free. It refers to materials that were once copyrighted but now no longer owned by anyone. This is important because almost every single novel written over a hundred years ago is now part of the public domain. Also important is that there are a lot of projects out there dedicated to putting together free and legal databases of these public domain books.
What this means for you the student is that you may never have to purchase any books for classes that require you to read old material, especially helpful if you happen to take a lot of Literature or Philosophy courses.
This method of attaining free books usually requires the use of a laptop if you want to have the book with you in the classroom. If you simply want to read it at home, a desktop will be sufficient. Now the major problem is that reading off of a computer screen causes severe eye strain.
Therefore I would advise one of two things:
First: Use the public domain for books that you will not be reading in full but only selections of, especially if it poetry.
Second: Consider purchasing the Amazon Kindle. The reason I suggest this is because the Kindle was built to replace the experience of reading books. Therefore their screen is designed to be as gentle on the eyes as a regular page and won't case eye strain like monitors will. Even though it may seem steep at 400 dollars, it has a lot of advantages and options for savings.
For instance, I believe if you are an English major the money saved would far outweigh that earned on actually having to buy the Public Domain novels that are required reading for English classes. You can simply download them on your computer and transfer them to the Kindle to read and have with you the whole time. I suggest calculating how many novels you are assigned for each class and the cost of those books before deciding the Kindle can save you money.
Other advantages of course include never having to carry around books, highlighting features, and also a discount for buying books in Kindle-format.
Here are some great resources for Public Domain books:
Project Guttenberg
Planet eBook
ManyBooks
Google Book Search
PS:
Also don't bother wasting money on "style guides", they are available online, for free, for all types of formats:
OWL
American Heritage
MLA Guide
What this means for you the student is that you may never have to purchase any books for classes that require you to read old material, especially helpful if you happen to take a lot of Literature or Philosophy courses.
This method of attaining free books usually requires the use of a laptop if you want to have the book with you in the classroom. If you simply want to read it at home, a desktop will be sufficient. Now the major problem is that reading off of a computer screen causes severe eye strain.
Therefore I would advise one of two things:
First: Use the public domain for books that you will not be reading in full but only selections of, especially if it poetry.
Second: Consider purchasing the Amazon Kindle. The reason I suggest this is because the Kindle was built to replace the experience of reading books. Therefore their screen is designed to be as gentle on the eyes as a regular page and won't case eye strain like monitors will. Even though it may seem steep at 400 dollars, it has a lot of advantages and options for savings.
For instance, I believe if you are an English major the money saved would far outweigh that earned on actually having to buy the Public Domain novels that are required reading for English classes. You can simply download them on your computer and transfer them to the Kindle to read and have with you the whole time. I suggest calculating how many novels you are assigned for each class and the cost of those books before deciding the Kindle can save you money.
Other advantages of course include never having to carry around books, highlighting features, and also a discount for buying books in Kindle-format.
Here are some great resources for Public Domain books:
Project Guttenberg
Planet eBook
ManyBooks
Google Book Search
PS:
Also don't bother wasting money on "style guides", they are available online, for free, for all types of formats:
OWL
American Heritage
MLA Guide
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