Textbooks

Ordering Deadlines

While textbook information is always of interest to our students, collecting it for systematic publication has taken on new urgency as the University works toward full compliance with the Higher Education Opportunity Act. HEOA specifically requires schools to “provide students with accurate course material information including ISBN and retail price information.” Here at BU, the University-wide plan for implementing that requirement is that Barnes & Noble will forward ISBN and pricing information generated from textbook orders to the Registrar’s Office for linkage to the online course schedule.

In order to meet the University-wide deadline to process this book information, your fall book order should be placed no later than June 1 or one week after your hire date if you were hired after June 1. Your spring book orders should be placed no later than November 1. Place your orders at least a week before the deadline to allow the textbook staff time to identify any problems with your order. If you are hired after the deadline, please place your order as soon as possible, ideally by a week after you receive notification of your appointment.

Before You Order

Before ordering your books, check your class schedule on the Faculty Link* or the Student Link. Order books only if your courses are listed on the Link. If you are unsure of a section number or have any other questions about the status of your courses, contact wpadmin@bu.edu.

The program will order handbooks for WR 111  and WR 112 courses. (See Teaching Writing for information about  The Norton Sampler for WR 111.)

 Recommended Handbooks

We do not require you to use a handbook in WR 120 or WR 15x classes, but you can ask your students to purchase at most one handbook if you would like. The program’s Essential Lessons serve as resources, and many of them refer to Turabian’s Student’s Guide to Writing College Papers. Some sections of WR 120, and all sections of WR 112, require They Say/I Say, while a few instructors prefer using Williams or another handbook.

    • Student’s Guide to Writing College Papers, by Kate Turabian, University of Chicago, 2010.
    • They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, W. W. Norton & Company.
    • Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace, 4th edition, by Joseph M. Williams, Longman (Pearson). This book is a brief edition of Joseph Williams’s Style. We recommend it over the longer version because of its cost, under $20 opposed to over $40.

        Placing an Order

        To order books, please follow the instructions in the email that Barnes and Noble will send to you. You can research and submit new and/or additional adoption information through the Barnes and Noble Adoption & Insights portal, accessible here or via the FacultyLink. If you have any questions about your order, please contact the textbook staff at 617-236-7440 or at textbks@bu.edu.

        Requesting Examination and Desk Copies

        To request a desk copy of a book, email the appropriate publisher sales representative and provide your university, program, course, and the book you would like to request. You can determine the sales representative by going to the publisher’s website. Most publishers have an option to search for representatives on their website and/or a section explaining how instructors should request desk copies from them.

        While most desk copies are provided for free, University of Chicago Press charges for the copies if they are not adopted for use in your course. Because of this, we ask that you return to UCP any desk copies of titles you do not plan to adopt. If the review period passes, and you receive an invoice for an unreturned desk copy, please see the Program Administrator.

        Placing Materials on Reserve

        To place books or other materials on reserve at one of the BU libraries, contact the Reserve Services staff at the appropriate library. Alternatively, some materials can be reserved by submitting an online reserve form.

        If you would prefer to have an electronic version of your material on reserve, submit the citation(s) to Reserve Services, and they will find the cleanest copy available electronically, even if they need to scan it for you, and post it to an electronic reserve list available to you and your class. You may also download pdfs to load to your Blackboard course site.

        Fair Use Guidelines and Copyrighted Material

        If you post copyrighted material on Blackboard, Digication, or any other website, you must (1) restrict access to your students only, (2) remove the material after 15 days, and (3) include source and copyright information on the copyrighted material. You should also make sure you are in compliance with fair use guidelines. More information is available at http://www.bu.edu/copyright.