In the same tradition of prior editions, this Seventh Edition update the existing text while preserving Professor Rice's effort to produce a book that would be useful for students attempting to learn the subject and provide them with a text thorough enough to serve as a reference for them when they enter practice. The new authors have added a variety of new Exercises. In this latest edition, the authors reduced the size of the text by deleting and abbreviating lengthy and complicated opinions, producing narrative summaries and more manageable opinions, and excising lengthy articles and excerpts. These changes simplify and clarify the learning experience.

In practice, the subject of evidence is large, deep, and complex, particularly when examining existing problems with the Federal Rules of Evidence, teasing out inconsistencies in them, accounting for constitutional implications when the Confrontation and Due Process Clauses are incorporated, applying traditional rules to digital evidence, and evaluating the necessity of modernizing the codified rules.