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Paper | Definition, Papermaking, & Facts | Britannica
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Ellen Louise Curtis Demorest
Hugh Burgess
Cai Lun
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paper, matted or felted sheet, usually made of cellulose fibres, formed on a wire screen from water suspension.A brief treatment of paper follows. For full treatment, see papermaking.
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art conservation and restoration: Paintings on paper
Learn in depth the process of how paper products are produced and recycledOverview of the papermaking process.(more)See all videos for this articlePaper has been traced to China in about ad 105. It reached Central Asia by 751 and Baghdad by 793, and by the 14th century there were paper mills in several parts of Europe. The invention of the printing press in about 1450 greatly increased the demand for paper, and at the beginning of the 19th century wood and other vegetable pulps began to replace rags as the principal source of fibre for papermaking.Before 1798, Nicholas-Louis Robert constructed the first paper-making machine. Using a moving screen belt, paper was made one sheet at a time by dipping a frame or mold with a screen bottom into a vat of pulp. A few years later the brothers Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier improved Robert’s machine, and in 1809 John Dickinson invented the first cylinder machine.Although almost all steps in papermaking have become highly mechanized, the basic process has remained essentially unchanged. First, the fibres are separated and wetted to produce the paper pulp, or stock. The pulp is then filtered on a woven screen to form a sheet of fibre, which is pressed and compacted to squeeze out most of the water. The remaining water is removed by evaporation, and the dry sheet is further compressed and, depending upon the intended use, coated or impregnated with other substances.Differences among the grades and types of paper are determined by several factors: the type of fibre used; the preparation of the pulp, either by mechanical (groundwood) or chemical (primarily sulfite, soda, or sulfate) methods, or by a combination of the two; by the addition of other materials to the pulp, among the most common being bleach or colouring and sizing, the latter to retard penetration by ink; by conditions under which the sheet is formed, including its weight; and by the physical or chemical treatments applied to the finished sheet.
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Although wood has become the major source of fibre for papermaking, rag fibres are still used for paper of maximum strength, durability, and permanence. Recycled wastepaper (including newsprint) and paperboard are also important sources. Other fibres used include straw, bagasse (residue from crushed sugarcane), esparto, bamboo, flax, hemp, jute, and kenaf. Some paper, particularly specialty items, is made from synthetic fibres.
Weight or substance per unit area, called basis weight, is measured in reams (now commonly 500 sheets). Paper is also measured by caliper (thickness) and density. The strength and durability of paper is determined by factors such as the strength and length of the fibres, as well as their bonding ability, and the formation and structure of the sheet. The optical properties of paper include its brightness, colour, opacity, and gloss. Among the most important paper grades are bond, book, bristol, groundwood and newsprint, kraft, paperboard, and sanitary.The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Barbara A. Schreiber.
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1History
2Early sources of fibre
3Etymology
4Papermaking
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4.1Chemical pulping
4.2Mechanical pulping
4.3De-inked pulp
4.4Additives
4.5Producing paper
4.6Finishing
4.6.1Paper grain
5Applications
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5.1Published, written, or informational items
5.2Packaging and industrial uses
6Types, thickness and weight
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Material for writing, printing, etc.
For other uses, see Paper (disambiguation).
PaperPaper products: book, toilet paper, ruled paper, carton, egg boxMaterial typeThin materialPhysical propertiesDensity (ρ)From 10 gsm to 3000 gsm
Paper"Paper" in Traditional (top) and Simplified (bottom) Chinese charactersTraditional Chinese紙Simplified Chinese纸TranscriptionsStandard MandarinHanyu PinyinzhǐIPA[ʈʂɨ̀]WuShanghaineseRomanizationtsy5Yue: CantoneseYale RomanizationjíJyutpingzi2Southern MinHokkien POJchoáTâi-lôtsuá
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses, or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through a fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed on the surface, followed by pressing and drying. Although paper was originally made in single sheets by hand, almost all is now made on large machines—some making reels 10 metres wide, running at 2,000 metres per minute and up to 600,000 tonnes a year. It is a versatile material with many uses, including printing, painting, graphics, signage, design, packaging, decorating, writing, and cleaning. It may also be used as filter paper, wallpaper, book endpaper, conservation paper, laminated worktops, toilet tissue, currency, and security paper, or in a number of industrial and construction processes.
The papermaking process developed in east Asia, probably China, at least as early as 105 CE,[1] by the Han court eunuch Cai Lun, although the earliest archaeological fragments of paper derive from the 2nd century BCE in China.[2] The modern pulp and paper industry is global, with China leading its production and the United States following.
History
Main article: History of paper
Hemp wrapping paper, China, c. 100 BCE
The oldest known archaeological fragments of the immediate precursor to modern paper date to the 2nd century BCE in China. The pulp papermaking process is ascribed to Cai Lun, a 2nd-century CE Han court eunuch.[2]
It has been said that knowledge of papermaking was passed to the Islamic world after the Battle of Talas in 751 CE when two Chinese papermakers were captured as prisoners. Although the veracity of this story is uncertain, paper started to be made in Samarkand soon after.[3] In the 13th century, the knowledge and uses of paper spread from the Middle East to medieval Europe, where the first water-powered paper mills were built.[4] Because paper was introduced to the West through the city of Baghdad, it was first called bagdatikos.[5] In the 19th century, industrialization greatly reduced the cost of manufacturing paper. In 1844, the Canadian inventor Charles Fenerty and the German inventor Friedrich Gottlob Keller independently developed processes for pulping wood fibres.[6]
Early sources of fibre
See also: wood pulp and deinking
Before the industrialisation of paper production the most common fibre source was recycled fibres from used textiles, called rags. The rags were from hemp, linen and cotton.[7] A process for removing printing inks from recycled paper was invented by German jurist Justus Claproth in 1774.[7] Today this method is called deinking. It was not until the introduction of wood pulp in 1843 that paper production was not dependent on recycled materials from ragpickers.[7]
Etymology
Further information: Papyrus
The word paper is etymologically derived from Latin papyrus, which comes from the Greek πᾰ́πῡρος (pápūros), the word for the Cyperus papyrus plant.[8][9] Papyrus is a thick, paper-like material produced from the pith of the Cyperus papyrus plant, which was used in ancient Egypt and other Mediterranean cultures for writing before the introduction of paper.[10] Although the word paper is etymologically derived from papyrus, the two are produced very differently and the development of the first is distinct from the development of the second. Papyrus is a lamination of natural plant fibre, while paper is manufactured from fibres whose properties have been changed by maceration.[2]
Papermaking
Main article: Papermaking
Chemical pulping
Main articles: Kraft process, sulfite process, and soda pulping
To make pulp from wood, a chemical pulping process separates lignin from cellulose fibre. A cooking liquor is used to dissolve the lignin, which is then washed from the cellulose; this preserves the length of the cellulose fibres. Paper made from chemical pulps are also known as wood-free papers (not to be confused with tree-free paper); this is because they do not contain lignin, which deteriorates over time. The pulp can also be bleached to produce white paper, but this consumes 5% of the fibres. Chemical pulping processes are not used to make paper made from cotton, which is already 90% cellulose.
The microscopic structure of paper: Micrograph of paper autofluorescing under ultraviolet illumination. The individual fibres in this sample are around 10 µm in diameter.
There are three main chemical pulping processes: the sulfite process dates back to the 1840s and was the dominant method before the second world war. The kraft process, invented in the 1870s and first used in the 1890s, is now the most commonly practised strategy; one of its advantages is the chemical reaction with lignin produces heat, which can be used to run a generator. Most pulping operations using the kraft process are net contributors to the electricity grid or use the electricity to run an adjacent paper mill. Another advantage is that this process recovers and reuses all inorganic chemical reagents. Soda pulping is another specialty process used to pulp straws, bagasse and hardwoods with high silicate content.
Mechanical pulping
There are two major mechanical pulps: thermomechanical pulp (TMP) and groundwood pulp (GW). In the TMP process, wood is chipped and then fed into steam-heated refiners, where the chips are squeezed and converted to fibres between two steel discs. In the groundwood process, debarked logs are fed into grinders where they are pressed against rotating stones to be made into fibres. Mechanical pulping does not remove the lignin, so the yield is very high, > 95%; however, lignin causes the paper thus produced to turn yellow and become brittle over time. Mechanical pulps have rather short fibres, thus producing weak paper. Although large amounts of electrical energy are required to produce mechanical pulp, it costs less than the chemical kind.
De-inked pulp
Paper recycling processes can use either chemically or mechanically produced pulp; by mixing it with water and applying mechanical action the hydrogen bonds in the paper can be broken and fibres separated again. Most recycled paper contains a proportion of virgin fibre for the sake of quality; generally speaking, de-inked pulp is of the same quality or lower than the collected paper it was made from.
There are three main classifications of recycled fibre:
Mill broke or internal mill waste – This incorporates any substandard or grade-change paper made within the paper mill itself, which then goes back into the manufacturing system to be re-pulped back into paper. Such out-of-specification paper is not sold and is therefore often not classified as genuine reclaimed recycled fibre; however most paper mills have been reusing their own waste fibre for many years, long before recycling became popular.
Preconsumer waste – This is offcut and processing waste, such as guillotine trims and envelope blank waste; it is generated outside the paper mill and could potentially go to landfill, and is a genuine recycled fibre source; it includes de-inked preconsumer waste (recycled material that has been printed but did not reach its intended end use, such as waste from printers and unsold publications).[11]
Postconsumer waste – This is fibre from paper that has been used for its intended end use and includes office waste, magazine papers and newsprint. As the vast majority of this material has been printed – either digitally or by more conventional means such as lithography or rotogravure – it will either be recycled as printed paper or go through a de-inking process first.
Recycled papers can be made from 100% recycled materials or blended with virgin pulp, although they are (generally) not as strong nor as bright as papers made from the latter.
Additives
Besides the fibres, pulps may contain fillers such as chalk or china clay,[12] which improve its characteristics for printing or writing.[13] Additives for sizing purposes may be mixed with it or applied to the paper web later in the manufacturing process; the purpose of such sizing is to establish the correct level of surface absorbency to suit ink or paint.
Producing paper
Main articles: Paper machine and papermaking
Paper mill in Mänttä-Vilppula, Finland
The pulp is fed to a paper machine, where it is formed as a paper web and the water is removed from it by pressing and drying.
Pressing the sheet removes the water by force. Once the water is forced from the sheet, a special kind of felt, which is not to be confused with the traditional one, is used to collect the water. When making paper by hand, a blotter sheet is used instead.
Drying involves using air or heat to remove water from the paper sheets. In the earliest days of papermaking, this was done by hanging the sheets like laundry; in more modern times, various forms of heated drying mechanisms are used. On the paper machine, the most common is the steam-heated can dryer. These can reach temperatures above 93 °C (200 °F) and are used in long sequences of more than forty cans where the heat produced by these can easily dry the paper to less than six percent moisture.
Finishing
Lower quality paper (used to print the book in 1991) with visible bits of wood
The paper may then undergo sizing to alter its physical properties for use in various applications.
Paper at this point is uncoated. Coated paper has a thin layer of material such as calcium carbonate or china clay applied to one or both sides in order to create a surface more suitable for high-resolution halftone screens. (Uncoated papers are rarely suitable for screens above 150 lpi.) Coated or uncoated papers may have their surfaces polished by calendering. Coated papers are divided into matte, semi-matte or silk, and gloss. Gloss papers give the highest optical density in the printed image.
The paper is then fed onto reels if it is to be used on web printing presses, or cut into sheets for other printing processes or other purposes. The fibres in the paper basically run in the machine direction. Sheets are usually cut "long-grain", i.e. with the grain parallel to the longer dimension of the sheet. Continuous form paper (or continuous stationery) is cut to width with holes punched at the edges, and folded into stacks.
Paper grain
All paper produced by paper machines such as the Fourdrinier Machine are wove paper, i.e. the wire mesh that transports the web leaves a pattern that has the same density along the paper grain and across the grain. Textured finishes, watermarks and wire patterns imitating hand-made laid paper can be created by the use of appropriate rollers in the later stages of the machine.
Wove paper does not exhibit "laidlines", which are small regular lines left behind on paper when it was handmade in a mould made from rows of metal wires or bamboo. Laidlines are very close together. They run perpendicular to the "chainlines", which are further apart. Handmade paper similarly exhibits "deckle edges", or rough and feathery borders.[14]
Applications
Paper money from different countries
Paper can be produced with a wide variety of properties, depending on its intended use.
Published, written, or informational items
For representing value: paper money, bank note, cheque, security (see security paper), voucher, ticket
For storing information: book, notebook, graph paper, punched card, photographic paper
For published materials, publications, and reading materials: books, newspapers, magazines, posters, pamphlets, maps, signs, labels, advertisements, billboards.
For individual use: diary, notebooks, writing pads, memo pads journals, planners, note to remind oneself, etc.; for temporary personal use: scratch paper
For business and professional use: copier paper, ledger paper, typing paper, computer printer paper. Specialized paper for forms and documents such as invoices, receipts, tickets, vouchers, bills, contracts, official forms, agreements.
For communication: between individuals and/or groups of people: letter, post cards, airmail, telegrams, newsprint, card stock
For organizing and sending documents: envelopes, file folders, packaging, pocket folders, partition folders.
For artistic works and uses; drawing paper, pastels, water color paintings, sketch pads, charcoal drawings,
For special printed items using more elegant forms of paper; stationery, parchment,
Packaging and industrial uses
For packaging: corrugated box, paper bag, envelope, wrapping paper, paper string
For cleaning: toilet paper, paper towels, facial tissue.
For food utensils and containers: wax paper, paper plates and paper cups, beverage cartons, tea bags, condiments, food packaging, coffee filters, cupcake cups.
For construction: papier-mâché, origami paper, paper planes, quilling, paper honeycomb, sandpaper, used as a core material in composite materials, paper engineering, construction paper, paper yarn, and paper clothing
For other uses: emery paper, blotting paper, litmus paper, universal indicator paper, paper chromatography, electrical insulation paper (see also fishpaper), filter paper, wallpaper
It is estimated that paper-based storage solutions captured 0.33% of the total in 1986 and only 0.007% in 2007, even though in absolute terms the world's capacity to store information on paper increased from 8.7 to 19.4 petabytes.[15] It is estimated that in 1986 paper-based postal letters represented less than 0.05% of the world's telecommunication capacity, with sharply decreasing tendency after the massive introduction of digital technologies.[15]
Paper has a major role in the visual arts. It is used by itself to form two- and three-dimensional shapes and collages.[16][17] It has also evolved to being a structural material used in furniture design.[18] Watercolor paper has a long history of production and use.
Types, thickness and weight
Main articles: Paper size, Grammage, and Paper density
Card and paper stock for crafts use comes in a wide variety of textures and colors.
The thickness of paper is often measured by caliper, which is typically given in thousandths of an inch in the United States and in micrometres (µm) in the rest of the world.[19] Paper may be between 0.07 and 0.18 millimetres (0.0028 and 0.0071 in) thick.[20]
Paper is often characterized by weight. In the United States, the weight is the weight of a ream (bundle of 500 sheets) of varying "basic sizes" before the paper is cut into the size it is sold to end customers. For example, a ream of 20 lb, 8.5 in × 11 in (216 mm × 279 mm) paper weighs 5 pounds because it has been cut from larger sheets into four pieces.[21] In the United States, printing paper is generally 20 lb, 24 lb, 28 lb, or 32 lb at most. Cover stock is generally 68 lb, and 110 lb or more is considered card stock.
In Europe and other regions using the ISO 216 paper-sizing system, the weight is expressed in grams per square metre (g/m2 or usually gsm) of the paper. Printing paper is generally between 60 gsm and 120 gsm. Anything heavier than 160 gsm is considered card. The weight of a ream therefore depends on the dimensions of the paper and its thickness.
Most commercial paper sold in North America is cut to standard paper sizes based on customary units and is defined by the length and width of a sheet of paper.
The ISO 216 system used in most other countries is based on the surface area of a sheet of paper, not on a sheet's width and length. It was first adopted in Germany in 1922 and generally spread as nations adopted the metric system. The largest standard size paper is A0 (A zero), measuring one square metre (approx. 1189 × 841 mm). A1 is half the size of a sheet of A0 (i.e., 594 mm × 841 mm), such that two sheets of A1 placed side by side are equal to one sheet of A0. A2 is half the size of a sheet of A1, and so forth. Common sizes used in the office and the home are A4 and A3 (A3 is the size of two A4 sheets).
The density of paper ranges from 250 kg/m3 (16 lb/cu ft) for tissue paper to 1500 kg/m3 (94 lb/cu ft) for some specialty paper. Printing paper is about 800 kg/m3 (50 lb/cu ft).[22]
Paper may be classified into seven categories:[23]
Printing papers of wide variety.
Wrapping papers for the protection of goods and merchandise. This includes wax and kraft papers.
Writing paper suitable for stationery requirements. This includes ledger, bank, and bond paper.
Blotting papers containing little or no size.
Drawing papers usually with rough surfaces used by artists and designers, including cartridge paper.
Handmade papers including most decorative papers, Ingres papers, Japanese paper and tissues, all characterized by lack of grain direction.
Specialty papers including cigarette paper, toilet tissue, and other industrial papers.
Some paper types include:
Bank paper
Banana paper
Bond paper
Book paper
Coated paper: glossy and matte surface
Construction paper/sugar paper
Cotton paper
Fish paper (vulcanized fibres for electrical insulation)
Inkjet paper
Kraft paper
Laid paper
Leather paper
Mummy paper
Oak tag paper
Sandpaper
Troublewit, specially pleated paper
Tyvek paper
Wallpaper
Washi
Waterproof paper
Wax paper
Wove paper
Xuan paper
Paper stability
A book printed in 1920 on acidic paper, now disintegrating a hundred years later.
Much of the early paper made from wood pulp contained significant amounts of alum, a variety of aluminium sulfate salt that is significantly acidic. Alum was added to paper to assist in sizing,[24] making it somewhat water resistant so that inks did not "run" or spread uncontrollably. Early papermakers did not realize that the alum they added liberally to cure almost every problem encountered in making their product would be eventually detrimental.[25] The cellulose fibres that make up paper are hydrolyzed by acid, and the presence of alum eventually degrades the fibres until the acidic paper disintegrates in a process known as "slow fire". Documents written on rag paper are significantly more stable. The use of non-acidic additives to make paper is becoming more prevalent, and the stability of these papers is less of an issue.
Paper made from mechanical pulp contains significant amounts of lignin, a major component in wood. In the presence of light and oxygen, lignin reacts to give yellow materials,[26] which is why newsprint and other mechanical paper yellows with age. Paper made from bleached kraft or sulfite pulps does not contain significant amounts of lignin and is therefore better suited for books, documents and other applications where whiteness of the paper is essential.
Paper made from wood pulp is not necessarily less durable than a rag paper. The aging behaviour of a paper is determined by its manufacture, not the original source of the fibres.[27] Furthermore, tests sponsored by the Library of Congress prove that all paper is at risk of acid decay, because cellulose itself produces formic, acetic, lactic and oxalic acids.[28]
Mechanical pulping yields almost a tonne of pulp per tonne of dry wood used, which is why mechanical pulps are sometimes referred to as "high yield" pulps. With almost twice the yield as chemical pulping, mechanical pulps is often cheaper. Mass-market paperback books and newspapers tend to use mechanical papers. Book publishers tend to use acid-free paper, made from fully bleached chemical pulps for hardback and trade paperback books.
Environmental impact
Main articles: Environmental impact of paper and Deforestation
The production and use of paper has a number of adverse effects on the environment.
Worldwide consumption of paper has risen by 400% in the past 40 years[clarification needed] leading to increase in deforestation, with 35% of harvested trees being used for paper manufacture. Most paper companies also plant trees to help regrow forests. Logging of old growth forests accounts for less than 10% of wood pulp,[29] but is one of the most controversial issues.
Paper waste accounts for up to 40% of total waste produced in the United States each year, which adds up to 71.6 million tons of paper waste per year in the United States alone.[30] The average office worker in the US prints 31 pages every day.[31] Americans also use in the order of 16 billion paper cups per year.
Conventional bleaching of wood pulp using elemental chlorine produces and releases into the environment large amounts of chlorinated organic compounds, including chlorinated dioxins.[32] Dioxins are recognized as a persistent environmental pollutant, regulated internationally by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. Dioxins are highly toxic, and health effects on humans include reproductive, developmental, immune and hormonal problems. They are known to be carcinogenic. Over 90% of human exposure is through food, primarily meat, dairy, fish and shellfish, as dioxins accumulate in the food chain in the fatty tissue of animals.[33]
The paper pulp and print industries emitted together about 1% of world greenhouse-gas emissions in 2010[34] and about 0.9% in 2012.[35]
Current production and use
In the 2022−2024 edition of the annual "Pulp and paper capacites survey", the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reports that Asia has superseded North America as the top pulp and paper producing continent. [36]
FAO figures for 2021 show the production of graphic papers continuing its decline from a mid-2000s peak to hover below 100 million tonnes a year. By contrast, the production of other papers and paperboard – which includes cardboard and sanitary products – has continued to soar, exceeding 320 million tonnes.[36]
FAO has documented the expanding production of cardboard in paper and paperboard, which has been increasing in response to the spread of e-commerce since the 2010s.[36] Data from FAO suggest that it has been even further boosted by COVID-19-related lockdowns.[37]
Future
Some manufacturers have started using a new, significantly more environmentally friendly alternative to expanded plastic packaging. Made out of paper, and known commercially as PaperFoam, the new packaging has mechanical properties very similar to those of some expanded plastic packaging, but is biodegradable and can also be recycled with ordinary paper.[38]
With increasing environmental concerns about synthetic coatings (such as PFOA) and the higher prices of hydrocarbon based petrochemicals, there is a focus on zein (corn protein) as a coating for paper in high grease applications such as popcorn bags.[39]
Also, synthetics such as Tyvek and Teslin have been introduced as printing media as a more durable material than paper.
See also
Arches paper
Buckypaper
Continuous form paper (or "continuous stationery")
Deinked pulp
Environmental impact of paper
Fibre crop
Graphene oxide paper
Lokta paper
Mass deacidification
Paper and ink testing
Paper armour
Paper chemicals
Paper clip
Paper craft
Parchment paper, which emulates the texture of animal-based parchment
Roll hardness tester
Seed paper
Stone paper
Citations
^ Hogben, Lancelot. "Printing, Paper and Playing Cards". Bennett, Paul A. (ed.) Books and Printing: A Treasury for Typophiles. New York: The World Publishing Company, 1951. pp. 15–31. p. 17. & Mann, George. Print: A Manual for Librarians and Students Describing in Detail the History, Methods, and Applications of Printing and Paper Making. London: Grafton & Co., 1952. p. 77
^ a b c Tsien 1985, p. 38
^ Ward, James (2015). The Perfection of the Paper Clip: Curious Tales of Invention, Accidental Genius, and Stationery Obsession. Atria Books. ISBN 978-1476799865.
^ Burns 1996, pp. 417f.
^ Murray, Stuart A. P. The Library: An illustrated History. Skyhorse Publishing, 2009, p. 57.
^ Burger, Peter (2007). Charles Fenerty and his paper invention. Toronto: Peter Burger. pp. 25–30. ISBN 978-0-9783318-1-8. OCLC 173248586. Archived from the original on 19 April 2009. Retrieved 19 May 2009.
^ a b c Göttsching, Lothar; Gullichsen, Johan; Pakarinen, Heikki; Paulapuro, Hannu; Yhdistys, Suomen Paperi-Insinöörien; Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry (2000). Recycling fiber and deinking. Finland: Fapet Oy. pp. 12–14. ISBN 978-952-5216-07-3. OCLC 247670296.
^ πάπυρος Archived 16 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek–English Lexicon, on Perseus
^ "papyrus". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 29 January 2020.
^ "papyrus". Dictionary.com Unabridged (Online). n.d. Retrieved 20 November 2008.
^ "Natural Resource Defense Council". Archived from the original on 24 February 2011. Retrieved 20 February 2008.
^ Appropriate Technology. Intermediate Technology Publications. 1996.
^ Thorn, Ian; Au, Che On (24 July 2009). Applications of Wet-End Paper Chemistry. Springer Science & Business Media. Bibcode:2009aowp.book.....T. ISBN 978-1-4020-6038-0.
^ "ARCHIVED – Introduction – Detecting the Truth. Fakes, Forgeries and Trickery – Library and Archives Canada" Archived 2 August 2018 at the Wayback Machine in a virtual museum exhibition at Library and Archives Canada
^ a b "The World's Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information" Archived 12 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine, especially Supporting online material Archived 18 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine, Martin Hilbert and Priscila López (2011), Science, 332(6025), 60–65; free access to the article through here: martinhilbert.net/WorldInfoCapacity.html doi:10.1126/science.1200970
^ "Lynette Schweigert". NEA. 5 November 2015. Archived from the original on 4 October 2018. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
^ "Herminia Albarrán Romero". NEA. 24 January 2013. Archived from the original on 4 October 2018. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
^ Morris (August–September 2018). "Material Values, Paper". The Economist. p. 38.
^ "Paper Thickness (Caliper) Chart". Case Paper. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 May 2016. Retrieved 27 May 2017.
^ Elert, Glenn. "Thickness of a Piece of Paper". The Physics Factbook. Archived from the original on 8 June 2017. Retrieved 27 May 2017.
^ McKenzie, Bruce G. (1989). The Hammerhill guide to desktop publishing in business. Hammerhill. p. 144. ISBN 978-0-9615651-1-4. OCLC 851074844.
^ "Density of paper and paperboard". PaperOnWeb. Archived from the original on 19 October 2007. Retrieved 31 October 2007.
^ Johnson, Arthur (1978). The Thames and Hudson manual of bookbinding. London: Thames and Hudson. OCLC 959020143.
^ Biermann, Christopher J/ (1993). Essentials of pulping and papermaking. San Diego: Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-12-097360-6. OCLC 813399142.
^ Clark, James d'A. (1985). Pulp Technology and Treatment for Paper (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Miller Freeman Publications. ISBN 978-0-87930-164-4.
^ Fabbri, Claudia; Bietti, Massimo; Lanzalunga, Osvaldo (2005). "Generation and Reactivity of Ketyl Radicals with Lignin Related Structures. On the Importance of the Ketyl Pathway in the Photoyellowing of Lignin Containing Pulps and Papers". J. Org. Chem. 2005 (70): 2720–2728. doi:10.1021/jo047826u. PMID 15787565.
^ Erhardt, D.; Tumosa, C. (2005). "Chemical Degradation of Cellulose in Paper over 500 years". Restaurator: International Journal for the Preservation of Library and Archival Material. 26 (3): 155. doi:10.1515/rest.2005.26.3.151. S2CID 98291111.
^
"The Deterioration and Preservation of Paper: Some Essential Facts". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on 20 January 2015. Retrieved 7 January 2015. Research by the Library of Congress has demonstrated that cellulose itself generates acids as it ages, including formic, acetic, lactic, and oxalic acids
^ Martin, Sam (2004). "Paper Chase". Ecology Communications, Inc. Archived from the original on 19 June 2007. Retrieved 21 September 2007.
^ EPA (28 June 2006). "General Overview of What's in America's Trash". United States Environmental Protection Agency. Archived from the original on 5 January 2012. Retrieved 4 April 2012.
^ Groll, T. 2015 In vielen Büros wird unnötig viel ausgedruckt Archived 17 August 2015 at the Wayback Machine, Zeit Online, 20 June 2015.
^ Effluents from Pulp Mills using Bleaching – PSL1. Health Canada DSS. 1991. ISBN 978-0-662-18734-9. Archived from the original on 5 July 2017. Retrieved 21 September 2007. Pdf Archived 12 September 2017 at the Wayback Machine
^
"Dioxins and their effects on human health". World Health Organization. June 2014. Archived from the original on 27 April 2018. Retrieved 7 January 2015. More than 90% of human exposure is through food
^ "World GHG Emissions Flow Chart 2010" (PDF). Ecofys. Ecofys. Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 October 2020. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
^ "World GHG Emissions 2012". SANKEY DIAGRAMS. Ecofys. Archived from the original on 19 January 2021. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
^ a b c Sustainability by numbers: Forest products at FAO. Rome: FAO. 2023.
^ "COVID-19 leads to changes in paper and paperboard production". www.fao.org. 3 September 2021. Archived from the original on 3 November 2023. Retrieved 3 November 2023.
^ "PaperFoam Carbon Friendly Packaging". Archived from the original on 9 March 2006. Retrieved 3 April 2006.
^ "Barrier compositions and articles produced with the compositions cross-reference to related application". Archived from the original on 16 November 2018. Retrieved 13 June 2018.
General references
Burns, Robert I. (1996). "Paper comes to the West, 800–1400". In Lindgren, Uta (ed.). Europäische Technik im Mittelalter. 800 bis 1400. Tradition und Innovation (4th ed.). Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag. pp. 413–422. ISBN 978-3-7861-1748-3.
Tsien, Tsuen-Hsuin (1985). Needham, Joseph (ed.). Paper and Printing. Science and Civilisation in China, Chemistry and Chemical Technology. Vol. V (part 1). Cambridge University Press.
"Document Doubles" in ARCHIVED – Introduction – Detecting the Truth. Fakes, Forgeries and Trickery – Library and Archives Canada, a virtual museum exhibition at Library and Archives Canada
Further reading
External videos Discussion with Mark Kurlansky on Paper: Paging Through History, June 12, 2016, C-SPAN
Kurlansky, Mark (2016). Paper: Paging Through History. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393239614.
Monro, Alexander (2013). The Paper Trail: An Unexpected History of the World's Greatest Invention. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 9781846141898. OCLC 1040764924.
"Paper Brightness, Whiteness & Shade: Definitions and Differences" by David Rogers (June 26, 2015)
External links
Look up paper in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Paper.
Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry (TAPPI) official website
The Arnold Yates Paper collection at University of Maryland Libraries
"How is paper made?" at The Straight Dope, 22 November 2005
Thirteen-minute video on modern paper production system, from Sappi
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See also
Biomass
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vteWriting and writing materialEnduringPlant-based
Amate
Trema micrantha
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Streblus asper
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vteSculpturesTypes of sculptures
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Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius (175 CE)
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vteData storageFundamental storage technologies
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vteMagnetic storage media
Wire (1898)
Tape (1928)
Drum (1932)
Ferrite core (1949)
Hard disk (1956)
Stripe card (1956)
MICR (1956)
Thin film (1962)
CRAM (1962)
Twistor (~1968)
Floppy disk (1969)
Bubble (~1970)
MRAM (1995)
Racetrack (2008)
vteOptical storage mediaBlu-ray (2006)
BD-R (2006)
BD-RE (2006)
BD-R XL (2010)
BD-RE XL (2010)
Professional Disc (2003)
PDD (2004)
DVD (1995)
DVD-R (1997)
DVD-RW (1999)
DVD+RW (2001)
DVD+R (2002)
DVD+R DL (2004)
DVD-R DL (2005)
Compact disc (1982)
CD-R (1988)
CD-i (1991)
CD-RW (1997)
Discontinued
Microform (1870)
Optical tape (20th century)
Optical disc (20th century)
LaserDisc (1978)
WORM (1979)
GD-ROM (1997)
MIL-CD (1999)
DataPlay (2002)
UDO (2003)
ProData (2003)
UMD (2004)
HD DVD (2006)
Magneto-optic Kerr effect (1877)
MO disc (1980s)
MiniDisc (1992)
MD Data (1993)
Hi-MD (2004)
Optical Assist
Laser turntable (1986)
Floptical (1991)
Super DLT (1998)
vtePaper data storage mediaAntiquity
Writing on papyrus (c. 3000 BCE)
Paper (105 CE)
Modern
Index card (1640s)
Punched tape (mid-1800s)
Punched card (1880s)
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Historical Dictionary of Switzerland
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Papermaking | Process, History, & Facts | Britannica
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papermaking
Table of Contents
papermaking
Table of Contents
IntroductionThe papermaking processHistorical developmentImprovements in materials and processesIntroduction of machineryFibre sourcesWoodRagsWastepaper and paperboardNatural fibres other than woodSynthetic fibresProcesses for preparing pulpMechanical or groundwood pulpChemical wood pulpSemichemical pulpBleaching and washingManufacture of paper and paperboardPreparation of stockFormation of paper sheet by machinesFinishing and convertingThe world paper industryPaper properties and usesSubstance and quantity measurementStrength and durabilityOptical propertiesPaper gradesBond paperBook paperBristolGroundwood and newsprint papersKraft wrappingPaperboardsSanitary papers
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How Stuff Works - Home and Garden - How to Make Paper for Kids
Written by
Kenneth W. Britt
Senior Research Associate, Empire State Paper Research Institute, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse. Editor of Handbook of Pulp and Paper Technology.
Kenneth W. Britt
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papermaking, formation of a matted or felted sheet, usually of cellulose fibres, from water suspension on a wire screen. Paper is the basic material used for written communication and the dissemination of information. In addition, paper and paperboard provide materials for hundreds of other uses, such as wrapping, packaging, toweling, insulating, and photography.Learn in depth the process of how paper products are produced and recycledOverview of the papermaking process.(more)See all videos for this articleThe word paper is derived from the name of the reedy plant papyrus, which grows abundantly along the Nile River in Egypt. In ancient times, the fibrous layers within the stem of this plant were removed, placed side by side, and crossed at right angles with another set of layers similarly arranged. The sheet so formed was dampened and pressed. Upon drying, the gluelike sap of the plant, acting as an adhesive, cemented the layers together. Complete defibring, an indispensable element in modern papermaking, did not occur in the preparation of papyrus sheets. Papyrus was the most widely used writing material in ancient times, and many papyrus records still survive.The papermaking processHistorical developmentPapermaking can be traced to about ad 105, when Ts’ai Lun, an official attached to the Imperial court of China, created a sheet of paper using mulberry and other bast fibres along with fishnets, old rags, and hemp waste. In its slow travel westward, the art of papermaking reached Samarkand, in Central Asia, in 751; and in 793 the first paper was made in Baghdad during the time of Hārūn ar-Rashīd, with the golden age of Islāmic culture that brought papermaking to the frontiers of Europe.By the 14th century a number of paper mills existed in Europe, particularly in Spain, Italy, France, and Germany. The invention of printing in the 1450s brought a vastly increased demand for paper. Through the 18th century the papermaking process remained essentially unchanged, with linen and cotton rags furnishing the basic raw materials. Paper mills were increasingly plagued by shortages; in the 18th century they even advertised and solicited publicly for rags. It was evident that a process for utilizing a more abundant material was needed.Improvements in materials and processesIn 1800 a book was published that launched development of practical methods for manufacturing paper from wood pulp and other vegetable pulps. Several major pulping processes were gradually developed that relieved the paper industry of dependency upon cotton and linen rags and made modern large-scale production possible. These developments followed two distinct pathways. In one, fibres and fibre fragments were separated from the wood structure by mechanical means; and in the other, the wood was exposed to chemical solutions that dissolved and removed lignin and other wood components, leaving cellulose fibre behind. Made by mechanical methods, groundwood pulp contains all the components of wood and thus is not suitable for papers in which high whiteness and permanence are required. Chemical wood pulps such as soda and sulfite pulp (described below) are used when high brightness, strength, and permanence are required. Groundwood pulp was first made in Germany in 1840, but the process did not come into extensive use until about 1870. Soda pulp was first manufactured from wood in 1852 in England, and in 1867 a patent was issued in the United States for the sulfite pulping process.A sheet of paper composed only of cellulosic fibres (“waterleaf”) is water absorbent. Hence, water-based inks and other aqueous liquids will penetrate and spread in it. Impregnation of the paper with various substances that retard such wetting and penetration is called sizing.
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Before 1800, paper sheets were sized by impregnation with animal glue or vegetable gums, an expensive and tedious process. In 1800 Moritz Friedrich Illig in Germany discovered that paper could be sized in vats with rosin and alum. Although Illig published his discovery in 1807, the method did not come into wide use for about 25 years.Discovery of the element chlorine in 1774 led to its use for bleaching paper stock. Lack of chemical knowledge at the time, however, resulted in production of inferior paper by the method, discrediting it for some years. Chlorine bleaching is a common papermaking technique today.Introduction of machineryPrior to the invention of the paper machine, paper was made one sheet at a time by dipping a frame or mold with a screened bottom into a vat of stock. Lifting the mold allowed the water to drain, leaving the sheet on the screen. The sheet was then pressed and dried. The size of a single sheet was limited to the size of frame and mold that a man could lift from a vat of stock.In 1798 Nicolas-Louis Robert in France constructed a moving screen belt that would receive a continuous flow of stock and deliver an unbroken sheet of wet paper to a pair of squeeze rolls. The French government recognized Robert’s work by the granting of a patent.The paper machine did not become a practical reality, however, until two engineers in England, both familiar with Robert’s ideas, built an improved version for their employers, Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier, in 1807. The Fourdrinier brothers obtained a patent also. Two years later a cylinder paper machine (described below) was devised by John Dickinson, an English papermaker. From these crude beginnings, modern papermaking machines evolved. By 1875 paper coated by machinery was being made for use in the printing of halftones by the new photoengraving process, and in 1884 Carl F. Dahl invented sulfate (kraft) pulp in Danzig, Germany.Although the paper machine symbolizes the mechanization of the paper industry, every step of production, from the felling of trees to the shipment of the finished product, has also seen a dramatic increase in mechanization, thus reducing hand labour. As papermaking operations require the repeated movement of large amounts of material, the design and mechanization of materials-handling equipment has been and continues to be an important aspect of industry development.Although modern inventions and engineering have transformed an ancient craft into a highly technical industry, the basic operations in papermaking remain the same to this day. The steps in the process are as follows: (1) a suspension of cellulosic fibre is prepared by beating it in water so that the fibres are thoroughly separated and saturated with water; (2) the paper stock is filtered on a woven screen to form a matted sheet of fibre; (3) the wet sheet is pressed and compacted to squeeze out a large proportion of water; (4) the remaining water is removed by evaporation; and (5) depending upon use requirements, the dry paper sheet is further compressed, coated, or impregnated.
The differences among various grades and types of paper are determined by: (1) the type of fibre or pulp, (2) the degree of beating or refining of the stock, (3) the addition of various materials to the stock, (4) formation conditions of the sheet, including basis weight, or substance per unit area, and (5) the physical or chemical treatment applied to the paper after its formation.
Paper Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
Paper Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
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Est. 1828
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Definition
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adjective
noun
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paper
1 of 3
noun
pa·per
ˈpā-pər
Synonyms of paper
1
a(1)
: a felted sheet of usually vegetable fibers laid down on a fine screen from a water suspension
(2)
: a similar sheet of other material (such as plastic)
b
: a piece of paper
2
a
: a piece of paper containing a written or printed statement : document
pedigree papers
b
: a piece of paper containing writing or print
c
: a formal written composition often designed for publication and often intended to be read aloud
presented a scholarly paper at the meeting
d
: a piece of written schoolwork
3
: a paper container or wrapper
4
: newspaper
5
: the negotiable notes or instruments of commerce
6
: wallpaper sense 1
7
: tickets
especially
: free passes
8
: paperback
paper
2 of 3
verb
papered; papering
ˈpā-p(ə-)riŋ
transitive verb
1
archaic
: to put down or describe in writing
2
: to fold or enclose in paper
3
: to cover or line with paper
especially
: to apply wallpaper to
4
: to fill by giving out free passes
paper the theater for opening night
5
: to cover (an area) with advertising bills, circulars, or posters
intransitive verb
: to hang wallpaper
paperer
ˈpā-pər-ər
noun
paper
3 of 3
adjective
1
a
: made of paper, cardboard, or papier-mâché
a paper bag
b
: papery
2
: of or relating to clerical work or written communication
3
: existing only in theory : nominal
a paper blockade
4
: admitted by free passes
a paper audience
5
: finished with a crisp smooth surface similar to that of paper
paper taffeta
Phrases
on paper
1
: in writing
wants these promises on paper
2
: in theory
the plan looks good on paper
3
: figured at face value
on paper the stock was worth nearly a million dollars
Synonyms
Noun
blank
document
form
Adjective
formal
nominal
titular
See all Synonyms & Antonyms in Thesaurus
Examples of paper in a Sentence
Noun
We'll need pens, glue, and some paper.
Be sure to print the letter on good paper.
He scribbled the number on a scrap of paper.
a crumpled piece of paper
The border guards asked to see my papers.
They published a landmark paper in 1995.
The teacher was busy grading papers.
She did well on her history paper.
Adjective
Their accounts showed lots of paper profits, but they went bankrupt anyway.
there's a paper boycott of that company's products that nobody seems to be honoring
See More
Recent Examples on the WebNoun
From pen to paper to film, five standout original songs are now on their way to the Oscars.
—Hannah Dailey, Billboard, 8 Mar. 2024
In addition to possible violence from adherents of these beliefs, Christians and non-Christians alike should also be concerned about Christian nationalist views on democracy, said Whitehead, who has published several research papers about the movement.
—Will Carless, USA TODAY, 7 Mar. 2024
According to a 2010 paper by Robert Brauneis, an intellectual property law expert at George Washington University, Mildred and Patty started collaborating on children’s songs in 1889, eventually compiling their compositions in a book titled Song Stories for the Kindergarten.
—Kellie B. Gormly, Smithsonian Magazine, 7 Mar. 2024
The discovery seemed so explosive that a Reuters reporter rushed to publish the scoop more than two weeks before the scientific papers were due to come out; two press conferences followed.
—Sarah Zhang, The Atlantic, 7 Mar. 2024
The paper also notes that lab contamination and patient behaviors that are unknown to the researchers could also influence their results.
—Susanne Rust, Los Angeles Times, 7 Mar. 2024
Take Paypal billionaire Peter Thiel, who famously spent 12 days in New Zealand over the course of five years and came away with a massive property fit for the end of the world and naturalization papers.
—Alicia Adamczyk, Fortune, 7 Mar. 2024
Many other nations have moved toward a type of polymer notes, which are a form of plastic which lasts about four times longer than U.S. paper.
—Kurt Snibbe, Orange County Register, 25 Feb. 2024
Inflatable chopstick? — and Elaine Welteroth, who gave us a look at hot fashion of SAG Awards past before kicking things off with Ali Wong wearing a black and white number decorated by what looked like a bunch of artisanal paper snowflakes.
—Meredith Blake, Los Angeles Times, 25 Feb. 2024
Verb
One wall of this room is papered corner to corner with magazine covers and newspaper articles about Benioff.
—Dara Kerr, NPR, 28 Feb. 2024
Then roll it lengthwise, into a long log, cut it in half, and put it in the buttered, papered bread pans to rise.
—Southern Living Test Kitchen, Southern Living, 24 Dec. 2023
The skin sample, about the size of a fingernail and literally paper thin, is described in a study published on January 10 in the journal Current Biology, along with other fossil findings.
—Popular Science, 11 Jan. 2024
To the left of the hallway, past the dining room and kitchen, on the far side of the building’s hollow center, are the main bedroom and the two children’s rooms, in which the walls have been painted and papered with vibrant images of rainforest scenes.
—Nick Haramis Ricardo Labougle, New York Times, 30 Nov. 2023
The Balata camp, with its power lines sagging between concrete buildings and walls papered with posters of slain fighters, is a living monument to the community’s troubled history.
—Sufian Taha, Washington Post, 26 Nov. 2023
In her sterile room, Ms. Jaouad started to paint and papered her walls in vibrant, sometimes gruesome watercolor.
—Mattie Kahn, New York Times, 28 Nov. 2023
Its reporter talked to the broker, who said Raphael put serious money into restorations, even papering a bedroom in William Morris wallpaper.
—Adriane Quinlan, Curbed, 8 Nov. 2023
Apply peel-and-stick wallpaper to a single wall for a showy accent, or go all in and paper the entire room for a bathroom brimming with personality.
—Sarah Egge, Better Homes & Gardens, 11 Oct. 2023
Adjective
In the financial world, assets can be divided into two types: paper assets, and non-paper assets.
—The Salt Lake Tribune, 24 Aug. 2022
Staples, clips and other non-paper materials must be removed.
—Shirley MacFarland, cleveland, 26 Aug. 2022
Some theater owners have told customers that certain sizes are available only in those non-paper options.
—Erich Schwartzel, WSJ, 31 May 2022
During 2020's surges, Kate O'Neill, a professor in the department of environmental science, policy and management at UC Berkeley, explained to CNN how non-paper condiment packets are nearly impossible to recycle.
—Wyatte Grantham-Philips, USA TODAY, 27 Sep. 2021
That means choosing cards without any non-paper embellishments like foil or ribbon.
—Kirby Adams, The Courier-Journal, 24 Nov. 2020
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These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'paper.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
Noun
Middle English papir, from Anglo-French, from Latin papyrus papyrus, paper, from Greek papyros papyrus
First Known Use
Noun
14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a(1) Verb
1594, in the meaning defined at transitive sense 1 Adjective
1549, in the meaning defined at sense 1a
Time Traveler
The first known use of paper was
in the 14th century
See more words from the same century
Phrases Containing paper
construction paper
greaseproof paper
litmus paper
kitchen paper
paper round
paper route
position paper
tissue paper
term paper
commit (something) to paper/writing
blotting paper
carbon paper
laid paper
bog paper
filter paper
lavatory paper
garnet paper
paper knife
paper over
paper clip
paper birch
paper money
paper pusher
paper chromatography
paper profit
cigarette paper
Bible paper
butcher paper
bond paper
crepe paper
commercial paper
height to paper
funny paper
graph paper
manila paper
green paper
paper cutter
order paper
paper mulberry
India paper
paper nautilus
paper tiger
paper-train
not worth the paper it's written/printed on
paper over the cracks
paper towel
paper qualification
paper trail
paper-thin
put/set pen to paper
rice paper
put pen to paper
push paper(s)
toilet paper
scrap paper
paper wasp
waxed paper
wove paper
wax paper
white paper
writing paper
wrapping paper
scratch paper
tracing paper
rough paper
run-of-paper
silver paper
tar paper
on paper
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Dictionary Entries Near paper
Papen
paper
paperback
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“Paper.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paper. Accessed 12 Mar. 2024.
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Kids Definition
paper
1 of 3
noun
pa·per
ˈpā-pər
1
a
: a thin sheet made usually from rags, wood, straw, or bark and used to write or print on, to wrap things in, or to cover walls
b
: a sheet or piece of paper
2
a
: a piece of paper having something written or printed on it
b
: a written composition
3
: newspaper
4
: wallpaper
paper
2 of 3
verb
papered; papering
ˈpā-p(ə-)riŋ
: to cover or line with paper and especially wallpaper
paper a room
paperer
-pər-ər
noun
paper
3 of 3
adjective
1
a
: of, relating to, or made of paper or cardboard
paper carton paper mills
b
: papery
nuts with paper shells
2
: nominal sense 1
Etymology
Noun
Middle English papir "paper," from early French papier (same meaning), from Latin papyrus "paper, papyrus" — related to papyrus
Legal Definition
paper
noun
pa·per
1
: a piece of paper containing a written statement: as
a
: a formal written composition or document often intended for publication
the Federalist papers
b
: a document containing a statement of legal status, identity, authority, or ownership
—often used in pl. whether applying to one or more items
naturalization papers this policy, including the endorsements and the attached papers—Mutual of Omaha
c
: a document (as an answer, motion, or brief) prepared in furtherance of a legal action
any paper after the complaint that is required to be served…must be filed within a reasonable time after service—Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 5(d)
2
: a document providing evidence of a financial obligation
especially
: commercial paper in this entry
—
accommodation paper
: commercial paper used by one party to accommodate another party
—
bearer paper
: commercial paper that is freely negotiable by the holder and is made payable to bearer compare order paper in this entry
—
chattel paper
: paper that sets out both a buyer's obligation to repay and a lender's or a seller's security interest in the goods bought or that contains the provisions of a lease of the goods
—
commercial paper
: a usually negotiable instrument (as a note, draft, or certificate of deposit) arising out of a commercial transaction
specifically
: any of the instruments constituting the obligations of a business organization that are sold as investments
—
order paper
: commercial paper that is payable to order compare bearer paper in this entry
More from Merriam-Webster on paper
Nglish: Translation of paper for Spanish Speakers
Britannica English: Translation of paper for Arabic Speakers
Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about paper
Last Updated:
11 Mar 2024
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PAPER | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
PAPER | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
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English (UK)
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English
Meaning of paper in English
papernoun uk
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/ˈpeɪ.pər/ us
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/ˈpeɪ.pɚ/
paper noun
(MATERIAL)
Add to word list
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A1 [ U ] thin, flat material made from crushed wood or cloth, used for writing, printing, or drawing on: a piece/sheet of paper writing paper Dictionaries are usually printed on thin paper. a paper bag This card is printed on recycled paper (= paper made from used paper). Get the idea down on paper (= write it) before you forget it. She works on paper (= writes things on paper) because she hates computers.
Ulf Wittrock/EyeEm/GettyImages
More examplesFewer examplesI didn't realize we had to write each answer on a new sheet of paper.The parcel had only been loosely wrapped, and the paper had come off.Have you got a scrap of paper I could write on?He rifled through the papers on the desk, but couldn't find the photographs.The leaflets will be printed on recycled paper.
SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases
Publishing: paper & stationery
A3
A5
acid-free
assembler
backspace
ballpoint pen
chalk
foolscap
fountain pen
gift wrap
grammage
hanging chad
notepad
propelling pencil
pulp
quill
quire
qwerty
ream
vellum
See more results »
paper noun
(DOCUMENT)
B1 [ C ] a newspaper: a daily/weekly/local/national paper The photo was on the front page of all the papers.
papers [ plural ]
official documents, especially ones that show who you are: The border guards stopped me and asked to see my papers.
See more
A2 [ C ] UK a set of printed questions for an exam: Candidates must answer two questions from each paper. The geography paper is not till next week.
C2 [ C ] a piece of writing on a particular subject written by an expert and usually published in a book or journal, or read aloud to other people: He will give a paper on thermodynamics at a conference in Berlin.
B1 [ C ] US (UK essay) a short piece of writing on a particular subject, especially one done by students as part of the work for a course: Mr Jones thought my history paper was terrific. For homework I want you to write a paper on endangered species.
SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases
Newspapers & magazines
above/below the fold idiom
annal
anti-press
back copy
broadsheet
chronicle
circulation
comic
fold
full-page
gazette
glossy magazine
house journal
house organ
organ
pulp
quarterly
rag
sentinel
serialize
See more results »
You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:
Exams, tests & exercises
Papers and compositions
Idioms
someone couldn't act, argue, fight, etc. their way out of a paper bag
on paper
a paper chase
paperverb [ T ] uk
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/ˈpeɪ.pər/ us
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/ˈpeɪ.pɚ/
to cover a wall, room, etc. with wallpaper
SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases
Building: interior decoration
aesthetic
backsplash
boho
caulk
chinoiserie
feng shui
flock wallpaper
flocked wallpaper
furbish
gesso
masking tape
mood board
moulding
overdecorate
overdecoration
spackling
splashback
tablescape
tablescaping
tiled
See more results »
You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:
Curtains & wallpaper
Phrasal verb
paper over something
(Definition of paper from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)
paper | American Dictionary
papernoun [ C/U ] us
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/ˈpeɪ·pər/
Add to word list
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a thin, flat material made from crushed wood or cloth used esp. for writing and printing on and in packaging: [ U ] a piece/sheet of paper [ U ] a paper bag/towel [ U ] paper cups/napkins/plates Let's put some of your good ideas down on paper (= write them down)
A paper is also a newspaper: [ C ] I read it in the paper.
A paper is also a piece of writing by a student for a course: [ C ] One of the course requirements is a 20-page paper.
Idiom
on paper
paperverb [ T ] us
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/ˈpeɪ·pər/
to put wallpaper (= decorative paper) on a surface, esp. a wall: We plan to paper the dining room.
(Definition of paper from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)
paper | Business English
papernoun uk
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/ˈpeɪpər/ us
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Add to word list
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[ U ] thin, flat material used for writing, printing, or drawing on: There was a huge stack of papers on her desk.a sheet/piece of paper Someone had printed the memo on yellow sheets of paper and posted it around the office. The paper industry recovery of the last year shows little sign of slowing down.
[ C ] a newspaper, or the company that owns and operates a newspaper: Murdoch has made an offer to buy the paper.in the papers There was nothing about the trial in the papers this morning. an article in Hong Kong's leading financial paper a daily/weekly paper a local/national paper
[ U ]
FINANCE
(also financial paper) assets in the form of bonds, shares, etc., as opposed to cash: The rise in share prices encourages bidders to issue their own paper. The system failed because people realized that the securitized financial paper was not worth the top rating it had received.
papers
[ plural ] official documents that show who you are: The company was fined for hiring over a hundred immigrants without papers.
LAW, GOVERNMENT an official government or legal document: Lawyers argued in papers submitted last month that lower courts were wrong to dismiss the lawsuit. The committee issued a paper stating that further information and analysis was required.
[ C ] a piece of writing on a particular subject, written by an expert and usually published in a book or journal: The paper recommends a series of steps for dealing with the problem.
on paper
written or printed on paper: The engineers worked out their ideas on paper.
used to say that although an idea seems good when you think of it, it may not be so good when you try to use it: It's a good plan on paper, but will it really work?
See also
bearer paper
commercial paper
fine paper
trade paper
white paper
working paper
(Definition of paper from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)
Examples of paper
paper
The plan of the paper is as follows.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
The rest of the paper is organized as follows.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
I must be in a position to exchange paper for paper, and idea for idea.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
The rest of this paper is organized as follows.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
The structure of the paper is as follows.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
The organization of the paper is as follows.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
The outline of the paper is as follows.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
The structure of this paper is as follows.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
The rest of the paper is structured as follows.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
The first of these is advanced in the two 1868 papers.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
The plan of this paper is as follows.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
I am pleased that my paper was accepted.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
We believe that our results in this paper can be valuable for these studies.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
See all examples of paper
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.
Collocations with paper
paper
These are words often used in combination with paper.Click on a collocation to see more examples of it.
acid-free paperWithin two years, acid-free paper became widely available for comparable cost.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
blank paperThere is no provision for the transmission at the reduced rate of blank paper or cardboard.
From the Hansard archive
Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0
briefing paperAn interim briefing paper is already available.
From the Hansard archive
Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.
See all collocations with paper
What is the pronunciation of paper?
A1,B1,A2,C2,B1
Translations of paper
in Chinese (Traditional)
紙, 報紙, 考卷…
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in Chinese (Simplified)
纸, 报纸, 考卷…
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in Spanish
papel, periódico, parte de un examen…
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in Portuguese
papel, jornal, exame…
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in more languages
in Marathi
in Japanese
in Turkish
in French
in Catalan
in Dutch
in Tamil
in Hindi
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in Danish
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कागद, वृत्तपत्र, प्रश्नपत्रिका…
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紙, 新聞, 論文…
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kâğıt, gazete, sınav kâğıdı…
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papier [masculine], journal [masculine], devoir [masculine]…
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paper, diari, treball escrit…
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papier, blad papier, krant…
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எழுதுவதற்கும், அச்சிடுவதற்கும், வரைவதற்கும் பயன்படுத்தப்படுகிற அரைத்த மரம் அல்லது துணியிலிருந்து தயாரிக்கப்படுகிற மெல்லிய தட்டையானப் பொருள்…
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कागज़, समाचारपत्र, अखबार…
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અખબાર, કાગજ, દૈનિક…
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papir, papir-, avis…
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papper, tidning, skriftligt prov…
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kertas, surat khabar, kertas soalan…
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das Papier, Papier-…, die Zeitung…
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papir [neuter], avis [masculine], stil [masculine]…
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کاغذ, اخبار, پرچہ…
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папір, листок, газета…
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бумага, газета, экзаменационный билет…
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కాగితం, వార్తా పత్రిక, పరీక్ష కోసం అచ్చువేసిన ప్రశ్నాపత్రం…
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وَرَق, صَحيفة, جَريدة…
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কাগজ, সংবাদপত্র, প্রশ্নপত্র…
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papír(ový), list papíru, noviny…
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kertas, surat kabar, ujian tertulis…
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กระดาษ, ใบปลิว, หนังสือพิมพ์…
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giấy, tờ giấy, báo…
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papier, gazeta, egzamin (pisemny)…
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종이, 신문, 과제물…
See more
carta, giornale, tema…
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paparazzi
paparazzo
papaw
papaya
paper
paper bid
paper birch
paper clip
paper currency
More meanings of paper
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crepe paper
paper clip
tar paper
term paper
tissue paper
toilet paper
wax paper
See all meanings
Phrasal Verbs
paper over something
See all phrasal verb meanings
Idioms and phrases
on paper idiom
plain paper phrase
trade publication/journal/magazine/paper phrase
a paper chase idiom
commit something to paper phrase
put/set pen to paper idiom
put/set pencil to paper idiom
See all idioms and phrases
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response
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US
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an answer or reaction
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Contents
English
Noun
paper (MATERIAL)
paper (DOCUMENT)
papers
Verb
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papers
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Writing a Research Paper Introduction | Step-by-Step Guide
Writing a Research Paper Introduction | Step-by-Step Guide
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Writing a Research Paper Introduction | Step-by-Step Guide
Research paperQuick guideFormatting guidelinesCreating a research paper outlineWriting the introductionWriting the table of contentsWriting the bodyTopic sentencesParagraph structureFixing a broken paperWriting the conclusionWriting recommendationsAvoiding plagiarismCiting sourcesAPA research paper guidelinesFormattingTitle pageAbstractHeadings & subheadingsWriting up methodsWriting up resultsTables & figuresAppendicesCitationsResearch paper checklist
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Writing a Research Paper Introduction | Step-by-Step Guide
Published on
September 24, 2022
by
Jack Caulfield.
Revised on
March 27, 2023.
The introduction to a research paper is where you set up your topic and approach for the reader. It has several key goals:
Present your topic and get the reader interested
Provide background or summarize existing research
Position your own approach
Detail your specific research problem and problem statement
Give an overview of the paper’s structure
The introduction looks slightly different depending on whether your paper presents the results of original empirical research or constructs an argument by engaging with a variety of sources.
The five steps in this article will help you put together an effective introduction for either type of research paper.
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Table of contentsStep 1: Introduce your topicStep 2: Describe the backgroundStep 3: Establish your research problemStep 4: Specify your objective(s)Step 5: Map out your paperResearch paper introduction examplesFrequently asked questions about the research paper introduction
Step 1: Introduce your topic
The first job of the introduction is to tell the reader what your topic is and why it’s interesting or important. This is generally accomplished with a strong opening hook.
The hook is a striking opening sentence that clearly conveys the relevance of your topic. Think of an interesting fact or statistic, a strong statement, a question, or a brief anecdote that will get the reader wondering about your topic.
For example, the following could be an effective hook for an argumentative paper about the environmental impact of cattle farming:
Argumentative paper hookAre cows responsible for climate change?
A more empirical paper investigating the relationship of Instagram use with body image issues in adolescent girls might use the following hook:
Empirical paper hookThe rise of social media has been accompanied by a sharp increase in the prevalence of body image issues among women and girls.
Don’t feel that your hook necessarily has to be deeply impressive or creative. Clarity and relevance are still more important than catchiness. The key thing is to guide the reader into your topic and situate your ideas.
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Step 2: Describe the background
This part of the introduction differs depending on what approach your paper is taking.
In a more argumentative paper, you’ll explore some general background here. In a more empirical paper, this is the place to review previous research and establish how yours fits in.
Argumentative paper: Background information
After you’ve caught your reader’s attention, specify a bit more, providing context and narrowing down your topic.
Argumentative paper backgroundA recent study (RIVM, 2019) shows that cattle farmers account for two thirds of agricultural nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands. These emissions result from nitrogen in manure, which can degrade into ammonia and enter the atmosphere. The study’s calculations show that agriculture is the main source of nitrogen pollution, accounting for 46% of the country’s total emissions. By comparison, road traffic and households are responsible for 6.1% each, the industrial sector for 1%.
Provide only the most relevant background information. The introduction isn’t the place to get too in-depth; if more background is essential to your paper, it can appear in the body.
Empirical paper: Describing previous research
For a paper describing original research, you’ll instead provide an overview of the most relevant research that has already been conducted. This is a sort of miniature literature review—a sketch of the current state of research into your topic, boiled down to a few sentences.
This should be informed by genuine engagement with the literature. Your search can be less extensive than in a full literature review, but a clear sense of the relevant research is crucial to inform your own work.
Begin by establishing the kinds of research that have been done, and end with limitations or gaps in the research that you intend to respond to.
Empirical paper backgroundVarious empirical studies have been conducted into Facebook usage among adolescent girls (Tiggermann & Slater, 2013; Meier & Gray, 2014). These studies have consistently found that the visual and interactive aspects of the platform have the greatest influence on body image issues. Despite this, highly visual social media (HVSM) such as Instagram have yet to be robustly researched.
Step 3: Establish your research problem
The next step is to clarify how your own research fits in and what problem it addresses.
Argumentative paper: Emphasize importance
In an argumentative research paper, you can simply state the problem you intend to discuss, and what is original or important about your argument.
Argumentative paper research problemWhile efforts are being made to mitigate these emissions, policymakers are reluctant to reckon with the scale of the problem. The approach presented here is a radical one, but commensurate with the issue.
Empirical paper: Relate to the literature
In an empirical research paper, try to lead into the problem on the basis of your discussion of the literature. Think in terms of these questions:
What research gap is your work intended to fill?
What limitations in previous work does it address?
What contribution to knowledge does it make?
You can make the connection between your problem and the existing research using phrases like the following.
Phrase
Connection
Although x has been studied in detail, insufficient attention has been paid to y.
You will address a previously overlooked aspect of your topic.
The implications of x study deserve to be explored further.
You will build on something suggested by a previous study, exploring it in greater depth.
It is generally assumed that x. However, this paper suggests that y …
You will depart from the consensus on your topic, establishing a new position.
Step 4: Specify your objective(s)
Now you’ll get into the specifics of what you intend to find out or express in your research paper.
The way you frame your research objectives varies. An argumentative paper presents a thesis statement, while an empirical paper generally poses a research question (sometimes with a hypothesis as to the answer).
Argumentative paper: Thesis statement
The thesis statement expresses the position that the rest of the paper will present evidence and arguments for. It can be presented in one or two sentences, and should state your position clearly and directly, without providing specific arguments for it at this point.
Thesis statementThis paper argues that the Dutch government must stimulate and subsidize livestock farmers, especially cattle farmers, to transition to sustainable vegetable farming.
Empirical paper: Research question and hypothesis
The research question is the question you want to answer in an empirical research paper.
Present your research question clearly and directly, with a minimum of discussion at this point. The rest of the paper will be taken up with discussing and investigating this question; here you just need to express it.
A research question can be framed either directly or indirectly.
This study set out to answer the following question: What effects does daily use of Instagram have on the prevalence of body image issues among adolescent girls?
We investigated the effects of daily Instagram use on the prevalence of body image issues among adolescent girls.
If your research involved testing hypotheses, these should be stated along with your research question. They are usually presented in the past tense, since the hypothesis will already have been tested by the time you are writing up your paper.
For example, the following hypothesis might respond to the research question above:
HypothesisIt was hypothesized that daily Instagram use would be associated with an increase in body image concerns and a decrease in self-esteem ratings.
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Step 5: Map out your paper
The final part of the introduction is often dedicated to a brief overview of the rest of the paper.
In a paper structured using the standard scientific “introduction, methods, results, discussion” format, this isn’t always necessary. But if your paper is structured in a less predictable way, it’s important to describe the shape of it for the reader.
If included, the overview should be concise, direct, and written in the present tense.
This paper will first discuss several examples of survey-based research into adolescent social media use, then will go on to …
This paper first discusses several examples of survey-based research into adolescent social media use, then goes on to …
Research paper introduction examples
Full examples of research paper introductions are shown in the tabs below: one for an argumentative paper, the other for an empirical paper.
Argumentative paper
Empirical paper
Argumentative paper introduction Are cows responsible for climate change? A recent study (RIVM, 2019) shows that cattle farmers account for two thirds of agricultural nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands. These emissions result from nitrogen in manure, which can degrade into ammonia and enter the atmosphere. The study’s calculations show that agriculture is the main source of nitrogen pollution, accounting for 46% of the country’s total emissions. By comparison, road traffic and households are responsible for 6.1% each, the industrial sector for 1%. While efforts are being made to mitigate these emissions, policymakers are reluctant to reckon with the scale of the problem. The approach presented here is a radical one, but commensurate with the issue. This paper argues that the Dutch government must stimulate and subsidize livestock farmers, especially cattle farmers, to transition to sustainable vegetable farming. It first establishes the inadequacy of current mitigation measures, then discusses the various advantages of the results proposed, and finally addresses potential objections to the plan on economic grounds.
Empirical paper introduction The rise of social media has been accompanied by a sharp increase in the prevalence of body image issues among women and girls. This correlation has received significant academic attention: Various empirical studies have been conducted into Facebook usage among adolescent girls (Tiggermann & Slater, 2013; Meier & Gray, 2014). These studies have consistently found that the visual and interactive aspects of the platform have the greatest influence on body image issues. Despite this, highly visual social media (HVSM) such as Instagram have yet to be robustly researched. This paper sets out to address this research gap. We investigated the effects of daily Instagram use on the prevalence of body image issues among adolescent girls. It was hypothesized that daily Instagram use would be associated with an increase in body image concerns and a decrease in self-esteem ratings.
Frequently asked questions about the research paper introduction
What should I include in a research paper introduction?
The introduction of a research paper includes several key elements:
A hook to catch the reader’s interest
Relevant background on the topic
Details of your research problem
and your problem statement
A thesis statement or research question
Sometimes an overview of the paper
When should I write my research paper introduction?
Don’t feel that you have to write the introduction first. The introduction is often one of the last parts of the research paper you’ll write, along with the conclusion.
This is because it can be easier to introduce your paper once you’ve already written the body; you may not have the clearest idea of your arguments until you’ve written them, and things can change during the writing process.
Should I use a research question, hypothesis, or thesis statement?
The way you present your research problem in your introduction varies depending on the nature of your research paper. A research paper that presents a sustained argument will usually encapsulate this argument in a thesis statement.
A research paper designed to present the results of empirical research tends to present a research question that it seeks to answer. It may also include a hypothesis—a prediction that will be confirmed or disproved by your research.
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How to Write a Research Paper | A Beginner's Guide
A research paper is a piece of academic writing that provides analysis, interpretation, and argument based on in-depth independent research.
Research papers are similar to academic essays, but they are usually longer and more detailed assignments, designed to assess not only your writing skills but also your skills in scholarly research. Writing a research paper requires you to demonstrate a strong knowledge of your topic, engage with a variety of sources, and make an original contribution to the debate.
This step-by-step guide takes you through the entire writing process, from understanding your assignment to proofreading your final draft.
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Table of contentsUnderstand the assignmentChoose a research paper topicConduct preliminary researchDevelop a thesis statementCreate a research paper outlineWrite a first draft of the research paperWrite the introductionWrite a compelling body of textWrite the conclusionThe second draftThe revision processResearch paper checklistFree lecture slides
Understand the assignment
Completing a research paper successfully means accomplishing the specific tasks set out for you. Before you start, make sure you thoroughly understanding the assignment task sheet:
Read it carefully, looking for anything confusing you might need to clarify with your professor.
Identify the assignment goal, deadline, length specifications, formatting, and submission method.
Make a bulleted list of the key points, then go back and cross completed items off as you’re writing.
Carefully consider your timeframe and word limit: be realistic, and plan enough time to research, write, and edit.
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Choose a research paper topic
There are many ways to generate an idea for a research paper, from brainstorming with pen and paper to talking it through with a fellow student or professor.
You can try free writing, which involves taking a broad topic and writing continuously for two or three minutes to identify absolutely anything relevant that could be interesting.
You can also gain inspiration from other research. The discussion or recommendations sections of research papers often include ideas for other specific topics that require further examination.
Once you have a broad subject area, narrow it down to choose a topic that interests you, meets the criteria of your assignment, and is possible to research. Aim for ideas that are both original and specific:
A paper following the chronology of World War II would not be original or specific enough.
A paper on the experience of Danish citizens living close to the German border during World War II would be specific and could be original enough.
Conduct preliminary research
Note any discussions that seem important to the topic, and try to find an issue that you can focus your paper around. Use a variety of sources, including journals, books, and reliable websites, to ensure you do not miss anything glaring.
Do not only verify the ideas you have in mind, but look for sources that contradict your point of view.
Is there anything people seem to overlook in the sources you research?
Are there any heated debates you can address?
Do you have a unique take on your topic?
Have there been some recent developments that build on the extant research?
In this stage, you might find it helpful to formulate some research questions to help guide you. To write research questions, try to finish the following sentence: “I want to know how/what/why…”
Develop a thesis statement
A thesis statement is a statement of your central argument — it establishes the purpose and position of your paper. If you started with a research question, the thesis statement should answer it. It should also show what evidence and reasoning you’ll use to support that answer.
The thesis statement should be concise, contentious, and coherent. That means it should briefly summarize your argument in a sentence or two, make a claim that requires further evidence or analysis, and make a coherent point that relates to every part of the paper.
You will probably revise and refine the thesis statement as you do more research, but it can serve as a guide throughout the writing process. Every paragraph should aim to support and develop this central claim.
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Create a research paper outline
A research paper outline is essentially a list of the key topics, arguments, and evidence you want to include, divided into sections with headings so that you know roughly what the paper will look like before you start writing.
A structure outline can help make the writing process much more efficient, so it’s worth dedicating some time to create one.
TipAI tools like ChatGPT can be effectively used to brainstorm potential thesis statements and develop research paper outlines. However, trying to pass off AI-generated text as your own work is widely considered plagiarism. This offense will be recognized by your university’s plagiarism checker or AI detector.
Instead, we recommend visiting our AI writing resources page to learn how to use AI tools responsibly.
Write a first draft of the research paper
Your first draft won’t be perfect — you can polish later on. Your priorities at this stage are as follows:
Maintaining forward momentum — write now, perfect later.
Paying attention to clear organization and logical ordering of paragraphs and sentences, which will help when you come to the second draft.
Expressing your ideas as clearly as possible, so you know what you were trying to say when you come back to the text.
You do not need to start by writing the introduction. Begin where it feels most natural for you — some prefer to finish the most difficult sections first, while others choose to start with the easiest part. If you created an outline, use it as a map while you work.
Do not delete large sections of text. If you begin to dislike something you have written or find it doesn’t quite fit, move it to a different document, but don’t lose it completely — you never know if it might come in useful later.
Paragraph structure
Paragraphs are the basic building blocks of research papers. Each one should focus on a single claim or idea that helps to establish the overall argument or purpose of the paper.
Here is an example of a well-structured paragraph. Hover over the sentences to learn more.
Example paragraph
George Orwell’s 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language” has had an enduring impact on thought about the relationship between politics and language.This impact is particularly obvious in light of the various critical review articles that have recently referenced the essay.For example, consider Mark Falcoff’s 2009 article in The National Review Online, “The Perversion of Language; or, Orwell Revisited,” in which he analyzes several common words (“activist,” “civil-rights leader,” “diversity,” and more).Falcoff’s close analysis of the ambiguity built into political language intentionally mirrors Orwell’s own point-by-point analysis of the political language of his day.Even 63 years after its publication, Orwell’s essay is emulated by contemporary thinkers.
Citing sources
It’s also important to keep track of citations at this stage to avoid accidental plagiarism. Each time you use a source, make sure to take note of where the information came from.
You can use our free citation generators to automatically create citations and save your reference list as you go.
APA Citation Generator MLA Citation Generator
Write the introduction
The research paper introduction should address three questions: What, why, and how? After finishing the introduction, the reader should know what the paper is about, why it is worth reading, and how you’ll build your arguments.
What? Be specific about the topic of the paper, introduce the background, and define key terms or concepts.
Why? This is the most important, but also the most difficult, part of the introduction. Try to provide brief answers to the following questions: What new material or insight are you offering? What important issues does your essay help define or answer?
How? To let the reader know what to expect from the rest of the paper, the introduction should include a “map” of what will be discussed, briefly presenting the key elements of the paper in chronological order.
Write a compelling body of text
The major struggle faced by most writers is how to organize the information presented in the paper, which is one reason an outline is so useful. However, remember that the outline is only a guide and, when writing, you can be flexible with the order in which the information and arguments are presented.
One way to stay on track is to use your thesis statement and topic sentences. Check:
topic sentences against the thesis statement;
topic sentences against each other, for similarities and logical ordering;
and each sentence against the topic sentence of that paragraph.
Be aware of paragraphs that seem to cover the same things. If two paragraphs discuss something similar, they must approach that topic in different ways. Aim to create smooth transitions between sentences, paragraphs, and sections.
Write the conclusion
The research paper conclusion is designed to help your reader out of the paper’s argument, giving them a sense of finality.
Trace the course of the paper, emphasizing how it all comes together to prove your thesis statement. Give the paper a sense of finality by making sure the reader understands how you’ve settled the issues raised in the introduction.
You might also discuss the more general consequences of the argument, outline what the paper offers to future students of the topic, and suggest any questions the paper’s argument raises but cannot or does not try to answer.
You should not:
Offer new arguments or essential information
Take up any more space than necessary
Begin with stock phrases that signal you are ending the paper (e.g. “In conclusion”)
The second draft
There are four main considerations when it comes to the second draft.
Check how your vision of the paper lines up with the first draft and, more importantly, that your paper still answers the assignment.
Identify any assumptions that might require (more substantial) justification, keeping your reader’s perspective foremost in mind. Remove these points if you cannot substantiate them further.
Be open to rearranging your ideas. Check whether any sections feel out of place and whether your ideas could be better organized.
If you find that old ideas do not fit as well as you anticipated, you should cut them out or condense them. You might also find that new and well-suited ideas occurred to you during the writing of the first draft — now is the time to make them part of the paper.
The revision process
The goal during the revision and proofreading process is to ensure you have completed all the necessary tasks and that the paper is as well-articulated as possible. You can speed up the proofreading process by using the AI proofreader.
Global concerns
Confirm that your paper completes every task specified in your assignment sheet.
Check for logical organization and flow of paragraphs.
Check paragraphs against the introduction and thesis statement.
Fine-grained details
Check the content of each paragraph, making sure that:
each sentence helps support the topic sentence.
no unnecessary or irrelevant information is present.
all technical terms your audience might not know are identified.
Next, think about sentence structure, grammatical errors, and formatting. Check that you have correctly used transition words and phrases to show the connections between your ideas. Look for typos, cut unnecessary words, and check for consistency in aspects such as heading formatting and spellings.
Tip: Create better flowing sentences with a paraphrasing tool.
Finally, you need to make sure your paper is correctly formatted according to the rules of the citation style you are using. For example, you might need to include an MLA heading or create an APA title page.
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Research paper checklist
Checklist: Research paper
0 / 14
I have followed all instructions in the assignment sheet.
My introduction presents my topic in an engaging way and provides necessary background information.
My introduction presents a clear, focused research problem and/or thesis statement.
My paper is logically organized using paragraphs and (if relevant) section headings.
Each paragraph is clearly focused on one central idea, expressed in a clear topic sentence.
Each paragraph is relevant to my research problem or thesis statement.
I have used appropriate transitions to clarify the connections between sections, paragraphs, and sentences.
My conclusion provides a concise answer to the research question or emphasizes how the thesis has been supported.
My conclusion shows how my research has contributed to knowledge or understanding of my topic.
My conclusion does not present any new points or information essential to my argument.
I have provided an in-text citation every time I refer to ideas or information from a source.
I have included a reference list at the end of my paper, consistently formatted according to a specific citation style.
I have thoroughly revised my paper and addressed any feedback from my professor or supervisor.
I have followed all formatting guidelines (page numbers, headers, spacing, etc.).
Well done!
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Writing a Research Paper Introduction | Step-by-Step Guide
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Woodcuts depicting the five seminal steps in ancient Chinese papermaking. From the 1637 Tiangong Kaiwu of the Ming dynasty.[1]
Paper is a thin nonwoven material traditionally made from a combination of milled plant and textile fibres. The first paper-like plant-based writing sheet was papyrus in Egypt, but the first true papermaking process was documented in China during the Eastern Han period (25–220 AD), traditionally attributed to the court official Cai Lun. This plant-puree conglomerate produced by pulp mills and paper mills was used for writing, drawing, and money. During the 8th century, Chinese paper making spread to the Islamic world, replacing papyrus. By the 11th century, papermaking was brought to Europe, where it replaced animal-skin-based parchment and wood panels. By the 13th century, papermaking was refined with paper mills using waterwheels in Spain. Later improvements to the papermaking process came in 19th century Europe with the invention of wood-based papers.
Although there were precursors such as papyrus in the Mediterranean world and amate in the pre-Columbian Americas, these are not considered true paper.[2][3] Nor is true parchment considered paper:[a] used principally for writing, parchment is heavily prepared animal skin that predates paper and possibly papyrus. In the 20th century with the advent of plastic manufacture, some plastic "paper" was introduced, as well as paper-plastic laminates, paper-metal laminates, and papers infused or coated with different substances to produce special properties.
Precursors[edit]
In contrast to paper, papyrus has an uneven surface that visibly retains the original structure of the ribbon-like strips that make it up. As the papyrus is worked, it tends to break apart along the seams, leading to long linear cracks and eventually falling apart.[2]
Papyrus[edit]
The word "paper" is etymologically derived from papyrus, Ancient Greek for the Cyperus papyrus plant. Papyrus is a thick, paper-like material produced from the pith of the Cyperus papyrus plant which was used in ancient Egypt and other Mediterranean societies for writing long before paper was used in China.[4]
Papyrus is prepared by cutting off thin ribbon-like strips of the pith (interior) of the Cyperus papyrus plant and then laying out the strips side-by-side to make a sheet. A second layer is then placed on top, with the strips running perpendicular to the first. The two layers are then pounded together using a mallet to make a sheet. The result is very strong, but has an uneven surface, especially at the edges of the strips. When used in scrolls, repeated rolling and unrolling causes the strips to come apart again, typically along vertical lines. This effect can be seen in many ancient papyrus documents.[5]
Paper contrasts with papyrus in that the plant material is broken down through maceration or disintegration before the paper is pressed. This produces a much more even surface and no natural weak direction in the material which falls apart over time.[5] Unlike paper, papyrus is created by pressing, matting, and pounding the Cyperus papyrus plant, which only grew in Egypt and Sicity, and drying it to create the end product. The words 'papyrus' and its derivative, 'paper', have often been used interchangeably despite referring to different products created through different methods.[6][3] Although it was used to great effect in Grece and Rome, papyrus has several downsides compared to paper. It was geographically limited by the Cyperus papyrus plant, which was primarily grown in Egypt. The Arabs tried to grow the plant north of Baghdad in the 830s but failed. While not especially expensive, it was more laborious to create papyrus with an even surface, and paper was more abundant and affordable than papyrus. It was also fragile, sensitive to moisture, and restricted to a scroll format of no more than 30–35 feet.[7]
By the end of the 9th century, paper had become more popular than papyrus in the Muslim World.[8] In Asia and Africa, paper displaced papyrus as the primary writing material by the mid-10th century.[9] In Europe, papyrus co-existed with parchment for several hundred years until it largely disappeared by the 11th century.[6][10]
Papyrus was used in Egypt as early as the third millennium before Christ, and was made from the inner bark of the papyrus plant (Cyperus papyrus). The bark was split into pieces which were placed crosswise in several layers with an adhesive between them, and then pressed and dried into a thin sheet which was polished for writing." Scholars of both East and West have sometimes taken it for granted that paper and papyrus were of the same nature; they have confused them as identical, and so have questioned the Chinese origin of papermaking. This confusion resulted partly from the derivation of the word paper, papier, or papel from papyrus and partly from ignorance about the nature of paper itself. Papyrus is made by lamination of natural plants, while paper is manufactured from fibres whose properties have been changed by maceration or disintegration.[11]— Tsien Tsuen-hsuin
Paper in China[edit]
Earliest known extant paper fragment unearthed at Fangmatan, circa 179 BCE
Hemp wrapping paper, Western Han period of China, circa 100 BCE
Oldest paper book, Pi Yu Jing, composed of six different materials, circa 256 CE
The world's earliest known printed book (using woodblock printing), the Diamond Sutra of 868, shows the widespread availability and practicality of paper in China.
Main article: Papermaking
Further information: Cai Lun § Development of paper, and Science and technology of the Han dynasty
Archaeological evidence of papermaking predates the traditional attribution given to Cai Lun,[12] an imperial eunuch official of the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE), thus the exact date or inventor of paper cannot be deduced. The earliest extant paper fragment was unearthed at Fangmatan in Gansu province, and was likely part of a map, dated to 179–141 BCE.[13] Fragments of paper have also been found at Dunhuang dated to 65 BCE and at Yumen pass, dated to 8 BCE.[14]
The invention traditionally attributed to Cai Lun, recorded hundreds of years after it took place, is dated to 105 CE. The innovation is a type of paper made of mulberry and other bast fibres along with fishing nets, old rags, and hemp waste which reduced the cost of paper production, which prior to this, and later, in the West, depended solely on rags.[14][15][2]
Techniques[edit]
During the Shang (1600–1050 BCE) and Zhou (1050–256 BCE) dynasties of ancient China, documents were ordinarily written on bone or bamboo (on tablets or on bamboo strips sewn and rolled together into scrolls), making them very heavy, awkward to use, and hard to transport. The light material of silk was sometimes used as a recording medium, but was normally too expensive to consider. The Han dynasty Chinese court official Cai Lun (c. 50–121 CE) is credited as the inventor of a method of papermaking (inspired by wasps and bees) using rags and other plant fibers in 105 CE.[2] However, the discovery of specimens bearing written Chinese characters in 2006 at Fangmatan in north-east China's Gansu Province suggests that paper was in use by the ancient Chinese military more than 100 years before Cai, in 8 BCE, and possibly much earlier as the map fragment found at the Fangmatan tomb site dates from the early 2nd century BCE.[13] It therefore would appear that "Cai Lun's contribution was to improve this skill systematically and scientifically, fix a recipe for papermaking".[16]
Cai Lun's biography in the Twenty-Four Histories says:[17]
In ancient times writings and inscriptions were generally made on tablets of bamboo or on pieces of silk called chih. But silk being costly and bamboos heavy they were not convenient to use. Tshai Lun then initiated the idea of making paper from the bark of trees, remnants of hemp, rags of cloth and fishing nets. He submitted the process to the emperor in the first year of Yuan-Hsing (105 CE) and received praise for his ability. From this time, paper has been in use everywhere and is universally called the paper of Marquis Tshai.
The production process may have originated from the practice of pounding and stirring rags in water, after which the matted fibres were collected on a mat. The bark of paper mulberry was particularly valued and high quality paper was developed in the late Han period using the bark of tán (檀; sandalwood). Although bark paper emerged during the Han dynasty, the predominant material used for paper was hemp until the Tang dynasty when rattan and mulberry bark paper gradually prevailed. After the Tang dynasty, rattan paper declined because it required specific growing areas, was slow in growth, and had a long regeneration cycle. The most prestigious kind of bark paper was known as Chengxintang Paper, which emerged during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, and was only used for imperial purposes. Ouyang Xiu described it as shiny, elaborate, smooth, and elastic.[18] In the Eastern Jin period a fine bamboo screen-mould treated with insecticidal dye for permanence was used in papermaking. After printing was popularized during the Song dynasty the demand for paper grew substantially. The supply of bark could not keep up with the demand for paper, resulting in the invention of new kinds of paper using bamboo during the Song dynasty.[19] In the year 1101, 1.5 million sheets of paper were sent to the capital.[17]
Uses[edit]
Open, it stretches; closed, it rolls up. it can be contracted or expanded; hidden away or displayed.[14]— Fu Xian
Among the earliest known uses of paper was padding and wrapping delicate bronze mirrors according to archaeological evidence dating to the reign of Emperor Wu of Han from the 2nd century BCE.[20] Padding doubled as both protection for the object as well as the user in cases where poisonous "medicine" were involved, as mentioned in the official history of the period.[20] Although paper was used for writing by the 3rd century CE,[21] paper continued to be used for wrapping (and other) purposes. Toilet paper was used in China from around the late 6th century.[22] In 589, the Chinese scholar-official Yan Zhitui (531–591) wrote: "Paper on which there are quotations or commentaries from Five Classics or the names of sages, I dare not use for toilet purposes".[22] An Arab traveler who visited China wrote of the curious Chinese tradition of toilet paper in 851, writing: "... [the Chinese] do not wash themselves with water when they have done their necessities; but they only wipe themselves with paper".[22]
During the Tang dynasty (618–907) paper was folded and sewn into square bags to preserve the flavor of tea. In the same period, it was written that tea was served from baskets with multi-colored paper cups and paper napkins of different size and shape.[20] During the Song dynasty (960–1279) the government produced the world's first known paper-printed money, or banknote (see Jiaozi and Huizi). Paper money was bestowed as gifts to government officials in special paper envelopes.[22] During the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), the first well-documented European in Medieval China, the Venetian merchant Marco Polo remarked how the Chinese burned paper effigies shaped as male and female servants, camels, horses, suits of clothing and armor while cremating the dead during funerary rites.[23]
Impact of paper[edit]
According to Timothy Hugh Barrett, paper played a pivotal role in early Chinese written culture, and a "strong reading culture seems to have developed quickly after its introduction, despite political fragmentation."[24] Indeed, the introduction of paper had immense consequences for the book world. It meant books would no longer have to be circulated in small sections or bundles, but in their entirety. Books could now be carried by hand rather than transported by cart. As a result, individual collections of literary works increased in the following centuries.[25]
Textual culture seems to have been more developed in the south by the early 5th century, with individuals owning collections of several thousand scrolls. In the north an entire palace collection might have been only a few thousand scrolls in total.[26] By the early 6th century, scholars in both the north and south were capable of citing upwards of 400 sources in commentaries on older works.[27] A small compilation text from the 7th century included citations to over 1,400 works.[28]
The personal nature of texts was remarked upon by a late 6th century imperial librarian. According to him, the possession of and familiarity with a few hundred scrolls was what it took to be socially accepted as an educated man.[29]
According to Endymion Wilkinson, one consequence of the rise of paper in China was that "it rapidly began to surpass the Mediterranean empires in book production."[14] During the Tang dynasty, China became the world leader in book production. In addition the gradual spread of woodblock printing from the late Tang and Song further boosted their lead ahead of the rest of the world.[30]
From the fourth century CE to about 1500, the biggest library collections in China were three to four times larger than the largest collections in Europe. The imperial government book collections in the Tang numbered about 5,000 to 6,000 titles (89,000 juan) in 721. The Song imperial collections at their height in the early twelfth century may have risen to 4,000 to 5,000 titles. These are indeed impressive numbers, but the imperial libraries were exceptional in China and their use was highly restricted. Only very few libraries in the Tang and Song held more than one or two thousand titles (a size not even matched by the manuscript collections of the grandest of the great cathedral libraries in Europe).[31]— Endymion Wilkinson
However, despite the initial advantage afforded to China by the paper medium, by the 9th century its spread and development in the Middle East had closed the gap between the two regions. Between the 9th to early 12th centuries, libraries in Cairo, Baghdad, and Cordoba held collections larger than even the ones in China, and dwarfed those in Europe. From about 1500 the maturation of paper making and printing in Southern Europe also had an effect in closing the gap with the Chinese. The Venetian Domenico Grimani's collection numbered 15,000 volumes by the time of his death in 1523. After 1600, European collections completely overtook those in China. The Bibliotheca Augusta numbered 60,000 volumes in 1649 and surged to 120,000 in 1666. In the 1720s the Bibliothèque du Roi numbered 80,000 books and the Cambridge University 40,000 in 1715. After 1700, libraries in North America also began to overtake those of China, and toward the end of the century, Thomas Jefferson's private collection numbered 4,889 titles in 6,487 volumes. The European advantage only increased further into the 19th century as national collections in Europe and America exceeded a million volumes while a few private collections, such as that of Lord Acton, reached 70,000.[31]
European book production began to catch up with China after the introduction of the mechanical printing press in the mid fifteenth century. Reliable figures of the number of imprints of each edition are as hard to find in Europe as they are in China, but one result of the spread of printing in Europe was that public and private libraries were able to build up their collections and for the first time in over a thousand years they began to match and then overtake the largest libraries in China.[30]— Endymion Wilkinson
Paper became central to the three arts of China – poetry, painting, and calligraphy. In later times paper constituted one of the 'Four Treasures of the Scholar's Studio,' alongside the brush, the ink, and the inkstone.[32]
"Five Oxen" by Han Huang (723–787), the earliest paper scroll painting of note by an identified artist
Paper in Asia[edit]
See also: Dunhuang manuscripts
After its origin in central China, the production and use of paper spread steadily. It is clear that paper was used at Dunhuang by 150 CE, in Loulan in the modern-day province of Xinjiang by 200, and in Turpan by 399. Paper was concurrently introduced in Japan sometime between the years 280 and 610.[33]
Eastern Asia[edit]
Paper spread to Vietnam in the 3rd century, to Korea in the 4th century, and to Japan in the 5th century. The paper of Korea was famed for being glossy white and was especially prized for painting and calligraphy. It was among the items commonly sent to China as tribute. The Koreans spread paper to Japan possibly as early as the 5th century but the Buddhist monk Damjing's trip to Japan in 610 is often cited as the official beginning of papermaking there.[25]
Islamic world[edit]
Paper page fragment from a Coptic language Bible from Egypt in the Islamic period, 8th century or later.
Origin[edit]
Paper was used in Central Asia by the 8th century but its origin is not clear. According to the 11th century Persian historian, Al-Thaʽālibī, Chinese prisoners captured at the Battle of Talas in 751 introduced paper manufacturing to Samarkand.[34][35] However, there are no contemporary Arab sources for this battle. A Chinese prisoner, Du Huan, who later returned to China reported weavers, painters, goldsmiths, and silversmiths among the prisoners taken, but no papermakers. According to Al-Nadim, a writer in Baghdad during the 10th century, Chinese craftsmen made paper in Khorasan:[36]
Then there is the Khurasani paper made of flax, which some say appeared in the days of the Umayyads, while others say it was during the Abbasid regime. Some say that it was an ancient product and others say that it is recent. It is stated that craftsmen from China made it in Khurasan in the form of Chinese paper.[36]— Al-Nadim
According to Jonathan Bloom – a scholar of Islamic and Asian Art with a focus on paper and printing, the connection between Chinese prisoners and the introduction of paper in Central Asia is "unlikely to be factual". Archaeological evidence shows that paper was already known and used in Samarkand decades before 751 CE. Seventy-six texts in Sogdian, Arabic, and Chinese have also been found near Panjakent, likely predating the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana. Bloom argues that based on differences in Chinese and Central Asian papermaking techniques and materials, the story of Chinese papermakers directly introducing paper to Central Asia is probably metaphorical. Chinese paper was mostly made of bast fibers while Islamic paper was primarily made of waste material like rags.[36][37] The paper-making innovations in Central Asia may be pre-Islamic, probably aided by the Buddhist merchants and monks of China and Central Asia. The Islamic civilization helped spread paper and paper-making into the Middle East after the 8th-century.[36] By 981, paper had spread to Armenian and Georgian monasteries in the Caucasus.[38] It arrived into Europe centuries later, and then to many other parts of the world. A historical remnant of this legacy is the continued use of the word "ream" to count bundles of paper, a word derived from Arabic rizma (bundle, bale).[36]
Shift from parchment to paper[edit]
During the 8th century, paper started to replace parchment as the primary writing material for administrative uses in Baghdad, the capital of Abbasids. According to Ibn Khaldun, a renowned Muslim historiographer, parchment was rare, and a great increase in the number of correspondents throughout Islamic territories, resulted in an order issued by Al-Fadl ibn Yahya, the Abbasid's Grand Vizier, for the manufacture of paper to replace parchment.[39]
There are records of paper being made at Gilgit in Pakistan by the sixth century, in Samarkand by 751, in Baghdad by 793, in Egypt by 900, and in Fes, Morocco around 1100, in Syria e.g. Damascus, and Aleppo, in Andalusia around 12th century, in Persia e.g. Maragheh by 13th century, Isfahan by 14th century, Ghazvin and Kerman, in India e.g. Dowlat Abad by the 16th century.[40] A Persian geography book written by an unknown author in the 10th century, Hodud al-Alam, is the oldest known manuscripts mentioning papermaking industry in Samarkand. The writer stated that the city was famous for paper manufacturing and the product was exported to many other cities as a high-quality item.[41] Samarkand kept its reputation for papermaking over few centuries even once the industry spread across other Islamic areas. For instance, it is said that some ministers in Egypt preferred ordering their required paper to Samarkand from which the paper was transported all the way to Egypt.[42]
In Baghdad, particular neighborhoods were allocated to paper manufacturing [43] and in Bazaar paper merchants and sellers owned distinct sectors being called Paper Market or Suq al-Warraqin, a street which was lined with more than 100 paper and booksellers' shops.[44] In 1035 a Persian traveler, Nasir Khusraw, visiting markets in Cairo noted that vegetables, spices and hardware were wrapped in paper for the customers.[45] In the 12th century one street named "Kutubiyyin" or book sellers Morocco as it contained more than 100 bookshops.[46]
The expansion of public and private libraries and illustrated books within Islamic lands was one of the notable outcomes of the drastic increase in the availability of paper.[47] However, paper was still an upmarket good given the remarkable required inputs, e.g. primary materials and labours, to produce the item in the absence of advanced mechanical machinery. In one account Ibn al-Bawwab, a Persian calligrapher and illuminator, had been promised by the Sultan to be given precious garments in response to his services. When the Sultan deferred delivering the promised clothes, he instead proposed taking the papers stored in the Sultan's library as his present.[42]
In another account, the hospitality of a minister in Baghdad, Ibn Al-Forat, had been described by his generosity in freely giving away papers to his guests or visitors.[48]
Types of paper[edit]
A wide range of papers with distinctive properties and varying places of origin were manufactured and utilised across Islamic domains. Papers were typically named based on several criteria:
Origins (e.g.Isfahani, Baghdadi, Halabi, Mesri, Samarkandi, Dowlat Abadi, Shami, Charta Damascena),
Sizes (Solsan, Nesfi,...),
People who have supported the paper development (e.g. Nuhi, Talhi, Jafari, Mamuni, Mansouri).[49]
Paper primary materials[edit]
Bast (hemp and flax), cotton, and old rags and ropes were the major input materials for producing the pulp. Sometimes a mixture of materials was also used for pulp making, such as cotton and hemp, or flax and hemp.[50][51] Other uncommon primary materials such as fig tree bark are also reported in some manuscripts.[52]
Papermaking process[edit]
Very few sources have mentioned the methods, phases and applied tools in the papermaking process though. A painting from an illustrated book in Persian has depicted different stages and required tools of the traditional workflow. The painting has distinguished two major phases of the papermaking process:
Pulp making and pulp dewatering: water power mill mixes linen wastes (Karbas) and rags, as the primary materials of papermaking, with water. They are well beaten in stone pits. In the next step, the watery pulp is poured into a piece of fabric, tied around two workers’ waists, to get initially dewatered and probably homogenised and purified. Once the pulp is dewatered into a considerable extent it passes through the next treatment phase.
Paper final treatments: this phase consists of several consequent steps e.g. moulding the pulp with a square laid with wire-like lines (dipping the mould in the vat containing pulp), pressing, sizing, drying and polishing. Each step in this phase is undertaken by a particular device. For instance, in the drying process, the paper was stuck to the wall with the use of horsehair.
Traditional paper making process-Oriental Paper
A manuscript from the 13th century has also elaborated the process of papermaking. This text shows how papermakers were undertaking multiple steps to produce high-quality paper. This papermaking instruction or recipe is a chapter under the title of al-kâghad al-baladî (local paper) from the manuscript of al-Mukhtara'fî funûn min al-ṣunan attributed to al-Malik al-Muẓaffar, a Yemeni ruler of Rasulids. The bark of fig trees, as the main source of papermaking in this recipe, went through frequent cycles of soaking, beating and drying. The process took 12 days to produce 100 sheets of high-quality paper. During the pulping stage, the beaten fibres were transformed into different sizes of Kubba (cubes) which they were used as standard scales to manufacture a certain number of sheets. The dimensions were determined based on three citrus fruit: limun (lemon), utrunja (orange) and narenja (Tangerine). A summarized version of this detailed process is as below. Each individual phase was repeated several times.
Soaking paper in a pool
Dewatering paper through squeezing and pressing
Making balls from the pulp
Pressing the balls
Drying the paper by sticking them to the wall and exposing the final product into the sun[52]
Paper properties[edit]
Near Eastern paper is mainly characterized by sizing with a variety of starches such as rice, katira (gum tragacanth), wheat, and white sorghum. Rice and white sorghum were more widely used.[53][52] Paper usually was placed on a hard surface and a smooth device called mohreh was used to rub the starch against the paper until it became perfectly shiny.[54]
The laborious process of papermaking was refined and machinery was designed for bulk manufacturing of paper. Production began in Baghdad, where a method was invented to make a thicker sheet of paper, which helped transform papermaking from an art into a major industry.[55] The use of water-powered pulp mills for preparing the pulp material used in papermaking dates back to Samarkand in the 8th century.[56] The use of human/animal-powered paper mills has also been identified in Abbasid-era Baghdad during 794–795,[57] though this should not be confused with later water-powered paper mills (see Paper mills section below). The Muslims also introduced the use of trip hammers (human- or animal-powered) in the production of paper, replacing the traditional Chinese mortar and pestle method. In turn, the trip hammer method was later employed by the Chinese.[58] Historically, trip hammers were often powered by a water wheel, and are known to have been used in China as long ago as 40 BCE or maybe even as far back as the Zhou dynasty (1050 BCE–221 BCE),[59] though the trip hammer is not known to have been used in Chinese papermaking until after its use in Muslim papermaking.[58]
By the 9th century, Muslims were using paper regularly, although for important works like copies of the revered Qur'an, vellum was still preferred.[60] Advances in book production and bookbinding were introduced.[61][unreliable source]
In Muslim countries they made books lighter—sewn with silk and bound with leather-covered paste boards; they had a flap that wrapped the book up when not in use. As paper was less reactive to humidity, the heavy boards were not needed.
Since the First Crusade in 1096, paper manufacturing in Damascus had been interrupted by wars, but its production continued in two other centres. Egypt continued with the thicker paper, while Iran became the center of the thinner papers. Papermaking was diffused across the Islamic world, from where it travelled further toward west into Europe.[62] Paper manufacture was introduced to India in the 13th century by Arab merchants, where it almost wholly replaced traditional writing materials.[60]
Indian subcontinent[edit]
The Weber manuscripts (above) were discovered in Kucha (Xinjiang, China), now preserved in the Bodleian Library (Oxford). They are a collection of 9 manuscript fragments, originally created on paper, and dated to the 5th to 6th century CE. Four were on Nepalese-origin paper (above: upper, off-white), others on Central Asian paper (lower, brown). Eight in good Tamil language written in two scripts, one in grammatically Tamil.[63][64]
The evidence of paper use on the Indian subcontinent appears first in the second half of the 7th century.[25][65] Its use is mentioned by 7th– and 8th-century Chinese Buddhist pilgrim memoirs as well as some Indian Buddhists, as Kakali and Śaya – likely Indian transliteration of Chinese Zhǐ (tsie).[65][66] Yijing wrote about the practice of priests and laypeople in India printing Buddha image on silk or paper, and worshipping these images. Elsewhere in his memoir, I-Ching wrote that Indians use paper to make hats, to reinforce their umbrellas and for sanitation.[65] Xuangzang mentions carrying 520 manuscripts from India back to China in 644 CE, but it is unclear if any of these were on paper.[67]
Thin sheets of birch bark and specially treated palm-leaves remained the preferred writing surface for literary works through late medieval period in most of India.[67] The earliest Sanskrit paper manuscript found is a paper copy of the Shatapatha Brahmana in Kashmir, dated to 1089, while the earliest Sanskrit paper manuscripts in Gujarat are dated between 1180 and 1224.[68] Some of oldest surviving paper manuscripts have been found in Jain temples of Gujarat and Rajasthan, and paper use by Jain scribes is traceable to around 12th-century.[67] According to the historical trade-related archives such as Cairo Geniza found in the synagogues of the Middle East, Jewish merchants – such as Ben Yiju originally from Tunisia who moved to India – imported large quantities of paper into ports of Gujarat, Malabar coast and other parts of India by the 11th-century to partly offset the goods they exported from India.[69][70]
According to Irfan Habib, it is reasonable to presume that paper manufacturing reached Sindh (now part of south Pakistan) before 11th-century with the start of Arab rule in Sindh.[68] Fragments of Arabic manuscripts found in the Sindhi city ruins of Mansura, which was destroyed circa 1030, confirm the use of paper in Sindh.[68] Amir Khusrau of Delhi Sultanate mentions paper-making operations in 1289.[68]
In the 15th century, Chinese traveler Ma Huan praised the quality of paper in Bengal, describing it as white paper that is made from "bark of a tree" and is as "glossy and smooth as deer's skin".[71] The use of tree bark as a raw material for paper suggests that the paper manufacturing in the eastern states of India may have come directly from China, rather than Sultanates formed by West Asian or Central Asian conquests.[68] Paper technology likely arrived in India from China through Tibet and Nepal around mid-7th century, when Buddhist monks freely traveled, exchanged ideas and goods between Tibet and Buddhist centers in India.[65] This exchange is evidenced by the Indian talapatra binding methods that were adopted by Chinese monasteries such as at Tunhuang for preparing sutra books from paper. Most of the earliest surviving sutra books in Tibetan monasteries are on Chinese paper strips held together with Indian manuscript binding methods.[72] Further, the analysis of the woodblock book covers of these historic manuscripts has confirmed that it was made of tropical wood indigenous to India, not Tibet.[67]
Kaghaz[edit]
The Tamil word for paper, kaghaz is a borrowing from Sogdian kʾɣδʾ, itself in turn possibly borrowed from Chinese (紙).[38] The Persian word was loaned into numerous other languages, including Arabic (كاغد)—an early development which shaped the spelling of the Persian word itself[38]—Bengali (কাগজ), Georgian (ქაღალდი), Kurdish, Marathi (कागद), Nepali, Telugu, and the various Turkic languages.[38] Through the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans the Persian kaghaz entered the languages of the region through Ottoman Turkish (كاغد), including Serbian, where it generated the word for "documentation" (ćage).[38]
Historian Nile Green explains that the increased access to paper had a role in the expansion of Persian into bureaucratic and in turn literary activities, that is, the domain of written Persian ("Persographia") in large parts of Eurasia.[38]
Paper in Europe[edit]
A copy of the Gutenberg Bible, printed on paper during the 1450s, in the New York Public Library
The oldest known paper document in Europe is the Mozarab Missal of Silos from the 11th century,[73] probably using paper made in the Islamic part of the Iberian Peninsula. They used hemp and linen rags as a source of fiber. The first recorded paper mill in the Iberian Peninsula was in Xàtiva in 1056.[74][75]
Papermaking reached Europe as early as 1085 in Toledo and was firmly established in Xàtiva, Spain by 1150. During the 13th century mills were established in Amalfi, Fabriano, and Treviso, Italy, and other Italian towns by 1340. Papermaking then spread further northwards, with evidence of paper being made in Troyes, France by 1348, in Holland sometime around 1340–1350, and in Nuremberg, Germany by 1390 in a mill set up by Ulman Stromer.[76] This was just about the time when the woodcut printmaking technique was transferred from fabric to paper in the old master print and popular prints. There was a paper mill in Switzerland by 1432 and the first mill in England was set up by John Tate around 1490 near Hertford,[77][78] but the first commercially successful paper mill in Britain did not occur before 1588 when John Spilman set up a mill near Dartford in Kent.[79] During this time, paper making spread to Austria by 1469,[80] to Poland by 1491, to Russia by 1576, to the Netherlands by 1586, to Denmark by 1596, and to Sweden by 1612.[40]
Arab prisoners who settled in a town called Borgo Saraceno in the Italian Province of Ferrara introduced Fabriano artisans in the Province of Ancona[clarification needed] the technique of making paper by hand. At the time they were renowned for their wool-weaving and manufacture of cloth. Fabriano papermakers considered the process of making paper by hand an art form and were able to refine the process to successfully compete with parchment which was the primary medium for writing at the time. They developed the application of stamping hammers to reduce rags to pulp for making paper, sizing paper by means of animal glue, and creating watermarks in the paper during its forming process. The Fabriano used glue obtained by boiling scrolls or scraps of animal skin to size the paper; it is suggested that this technique was recommended by the local tanneries. The introduction of the first European watermarks in Fabriano was linked to applying metal wires on a cover laid against the mould which was used for forming the paper.[81]
They adapted the waterwheels from the fuller's mills to drive a series of three wooden hammers per trough. The hammers were raised by their heads by cams fixed to a waterwheel's axle made from a large tree trunk.[82][83]
Americas[edit]
Amate is similar to modern paper but has a more fibrous texture.
In the Americas, archaeological evidence indicates that a similar bark-paper writing material was used by the Maya no later than the 5th century CE.[84] Called amatl or amate, it was in widespread use among Mesoamerican cultures until the Spanish conquest. The earliest sample of amate was found at Huitzilapa near the Magdalena Municipality, Jalisco, Mexico, belonging to the shaft tomb culture. It is dated to 75 BCE.[85]
The production of amate is much more similar to paper than papyrus. The bark material is soaked in water, or in modern methods boiled, so that it breaks down into a mass of fibres. They are then laid out in a frame and pressed into sheets. It is a true paper product in that the material is not in its original form, but the base material has much larger fibres than those used in modern papers. As a result, amate has a rougher surface than modern paper, and may dry into a sheet with hills and valleys as the different length fibres shrink.
European papermaking spread to the Americas first in Mexico by 1575 and then in Philadelphia by 1690.[40]
United States[edit]
The American paper industry began with the establishment of the first paper mill in British America in 1690 by William Rittenhouse of Philadelphia with the help of Pennsylvania's first printer, William Bradford. For two decades it would remain the only mill in the colonies, and for the next two centuries the city would remain the preeminent center of paper manufacturing and publishing. The first paper mills relied solely on rag paper production, with cotton rags generally imported from Europe. However, by the mid-19th century the sulfite process had begun to proliferate in other regions with better access to wood pulp, and by 1880, America had become the largest producer of paper goods in the world. While the Delaware Valley remained an important region in paper production and publishing through the late nineteenth century, Philadelphia was overtaken by regions using these new processes which had greater access to water power and wood pulp.[86]
The earliest of these mills were centered in New England and Upstate New York, the latter of which became home to International Paper, the largest pulp and paper company in the world, which held a 20% market share in 2017,[87] and at its peak produced more than 60% of the continent's newsprint in 1898, before an industry shift to Canada.[88] Chief among papermaking cities in New England and the world was Holyoke, Massachusetts, at one time making 80% of the writing paper of the United States and home to the ill-fated American Writing Paper Company, the world's largest producer of fine papers by 1920.[89][90] By 1885 the Paper City, as it is still called, produced 190 tons per day, more than twice Philadelphia's capacity.[91] Quickly it became a hub of paper machinery and turbine technology, host to the largest paper mills in the world in the 1890s, and D. H. & A. B. Tower, the largest paper mill engineering firm in the United States in the 19th century.[92] The Tower Brothers and their associates would be responsible for designing mills on five continents.[93] In the United States the firm supported the Berkshires' paper industry, building the first mills used to make U.S. currency by the Crane Company, as well as the first sulfite process mills of Kimberly Clark in Wisconsin, allowing the company to be the first west of the Appalachians to adopt the process, with access to vast forest resources.[94][95]
The pulp and paper industry continued to develop in other regions, including California, Ohio's Miami Valley, with centers in Dayton, Hamilton, and Cincinnati, as well as regions of the South, like Texas and Georgia, the latter being home to Georgia Pacific and WestRock, the 2nd and 3rd respective largest paper producers in the United States today.[87][96] Wisconsin's industry nevertheless endured and as of 2019 it had far and away the most paper manufacturers in the country, with 34 such enterprises. While only smaller specialty manufacturers remained in Pennsylvania and New England, New York retained 28 mills, followed by Georgia with 20, Michigan with 17, and Alabama with 16 respectively.[97]
Paper mills[edit]
Main article: Paper mill
The Nuremberg paper mill, the building complex at the lower right corner, in 1493. Due to their noise and smell, paper mills were required by medieval law to be erected outside the city perimeter.
The use of human and animal powered mills was known to Chinese and Muslim papermakers. However, the evidence for water-powered paper mills is elusive among both prior to the 11th century.[98][99][100][101] Scholars have identified paper mills, likely human or animal powered, in Abbasid-era Baghdad during 794–795.[57]
It is evident that throughout the Islamic lands e.g. Iran, Syria (Hama and Damascus), and North Africa (Egypt and Tripoli) water power mills were extensively used to beat the flax and rag wastes to prepare the paper pulp [102]
The Water mill was built under Abd al-Rahman II in Córdoba
Donald Hill has identified a possible reference to a water-powered paper mill in Samarkand, in the 11th-century work of the Persian scholar Abu Rayhan Biruni, but concludes that the passage is "too brief to enable us to say with certainty" that it refers to a water-powered paper mill.[103] This is seen by Halevi as evidence of Samarkand first harnessing waterpower in the production of paper, but notes that it is not known if waterpower was applied to papermaking elsewhere across the Islamic world at the time.[104] Burns remains sceptical, given the isolated occurrence of the reference and the prevalence of manual labour in Islamic papermaking elsewhere prior to the 13th century.[105]
Clear evidence of a water-powered paper mill dates to 1282 in the Iberian Crown of Aragon.[106] A decree by the Christian king Peter III addresses the establishment of a royal "molendinum", a proper hydraulic mill, in the paper manufacturing centre of Xàtiva.[106] The crown innovation was operated by the Muslim Mudéjar community in the Moorish quarter of Xàtiva,[107] though it appears to have been resented by sections of the local Muslim papermakering community; the document guarantees them the right to continue the way of traditional papermaking by beating the pulp manually and grants them the right to be exempted from work in the new mill.[106] Paper making centers began to multiply in the late 13th century in Italy, reducing the price of paper to one sixth of parchment and then falling further; paper making centers reached Germany a century later.[108]
The first paper mill north of the Alps was established in Nuremberg by Ulman Stromer in 1390; it is later depicted in the lavishly illustrated Nuremberg Chronicle.[109] From the mid-14th century onwards, European paper milling underwent a rapid improvement of many work processes.[110]
Fiber sources[edit]
Main article: Cotton paper
Before the industrialisation of the paper production the most common fibre source was recycled fibres from used textiles, called rags. The rags were from hemp, linen and cotton.[111] It was not until the introduction of wood pulp in 1843 that paper production was not dependent on recycled materials from ragpickers.[111] It was not realized at the time how unstable wood pulp paper is.
A means of removing printing inks from paper, allowing it to be re-used, was invented by German jurist Justus Claproth in 1774.[111] Today this process is called deinking.
19th-century advances in papermaking[edit]
Although cheaper than vellum, paper remained expensive, at least in book-sized quantities, through the centuries, until the advent of steam-driven paper making machines in the 19th century, which could make paper with fibres from wood pulp. Although older machines pre-dated it, the Fourdrinier papermaking machine became the basis for most modern papermaking. Nicholas Louis Robert of Essonnes, France, was granted a patent for a continuous paper making machine in 1799. At the time he was working for Leger Didot with whom he quarrelled over the ownership of the invention. Didot sent his brother-in-law, John Gamble, to meet Sealy and Henry Fourdrinier, stationers of London, who agreed to finance the project. Gamble was granted British patent 2487 on 20 October 1801. With the help particularly of Bryan Donkin, a skilled and ingenious mechanic, an improved version of the Robert original was installed at Frogmore Paper Mill, Hertfordshire, in 1803, followed by another in 1804. A third machine was installed at the Fourdriniers' own mill at Two Waters. The Fourdriniers also bought a mill at St Neots intending to install two machines there and the process and machines continued to develop.
However, experiments with wood showed no real results in the late 18th century and at the start of the 19th century. By 1800, Matthias Koops (in London, England) further investigated the idea of using wood to make paper, and in 1801 he wrote and published a book titled Historical account of the substances which have been used to describe events, and to convey ideas, from the earliest date, to the invention of paper.[112] His book was printed on paper made from wood shavings (and adhered together). No pages were fabricated using the pulping method (from either rags or wood). He received financial support from the royal family to make his printing machines and acquire the materials and infrastructure needed to start his printing business. But his enterprise was short lived. Only a few years following his first and only printed book (the one he wrote and printed), he went bankrupt. The book was very well done (strong and had a fine appearance), but it was very costly.[113][114][115]
Then in the 1830s and 1840s, two men on two different continents took up the challenge, but from a totally new perspective. Both Friedrich Gottlob Keller and Charles Fenerty began experiments with wood but using the same technique used in paper making; instead of pulping rags, they thought about pulping wood. And at about the same time, by mid-1844, they announced their findings. They invented a machine which extracted the fibres from wood (exactly as with rags) and made paper from it. Charles Fenerty also bleached the pulp so that the paper was white. This started a new era for paper making. By the end of the 19th-century almost all printers in the western world were using wood instead of rags to make paper.[116]
Together with the invention of the practical fountain pen and the mass-produced pencil of the same period, and in conjunction with the advent of the steam driven rotary printing press, wood based paper caused a major transformation of the 19th-century economy and society in industrialized countries. With the introduction of cheaper paper, schoolbooks, fiction, non-fiction, and newspapers became gradually available by 1900. Cheap wood based paper also meant that keeping personal diaries or writing letters became possible[clarification needed] and so, by 1850, the clerk, or writer, ceased to be a high-status job.[citation needed]
Early wood-based paper deteriorated as time passed, meaning that much of the output of newspapers and books from this period either has disintegrated or is in poor condition; some has been photographed or digitized (scanned). The acid nature of the paper, caused by the use of alum, produced what has been called a slow fire, slowly converting the paper to ash. Documents needed to be written on more expensive rag paper. In the 2nd half of the 20th century cheaper acid-free paper based on wood was developed, and it was used for hardback and trade paperback books. However, paper that has not been de-acidified was still cheaper, and remains in use (2020) for mass-market paperback books, newspapers, and in underdeveloped countries.
Determining provenance[edit]
Determining the provenance of paper is a complex process that can be done in a variety of ways. The easiest way is using a known sheet of paper as an exemplar. Using known sheets can produce an exact identification. Next, comparing watermarks with those contained in catalogs or trade listings can yield useful results. Inspecting the surface can also determine age and location by looking for distinct marks from the production process. Chemical and fiber analysis can be used to establish date of creation and perhaps location.[117][page needed]
See also[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to History of paper.
Kaghaz
Barkcloth
History of origami
Paperless office
Papyrus
Notes[edit]
^ Confusingly, parchment paper is a treated paper used in baking, and unrelated to true parchment.
References[edit]
^ 香港臨時市政局 [Provisional Urban Council]; 中國歷史博物館聯合主辦 [Hong Kong Museum of History] (1998). "Zàozhǐ" 造纸 [Papermaking]. Tian gong kai wu: Zhongguo gu dai ke ji wen wu zhan 天工開物 中國古代科技文物展 [Heavenly Creations: Gems of Ancient Chinese Inventions] (in Chinese and English). Hong Kong: 香港歷史博物館 [Hong Kong Museum of History]. p. 60. ISBN 978-962-7039-37-2. OCLC 41895821.
^ a b c d Barrett 2008, p. 34.
^ a b Barik 2019, p. 83.
^
"Papyrus definition". Dictionary.com. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
^ a b Tsien 1985, p. 38
^ a b Monro 2016, p. 32.
^ Monro 2016, p. 20-23, 34, 210.
^ Kurlansky 2016, p. 63.
^ Tsien 1985, p. 298.
^ Kurlansky 2016, p. 28.
^ Tsien 1985, p. 38.
^ Tsien 1985, p. 2
^ a b
David Buisseret (1998), Envisaging the City, U Chicago Press, p. 12, ISBN 978-0-226-07993-6
^ a b c d Wilkinson 2012, p. 908.
^ Papermaking. (2007). In: Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved April 9, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
^ "New Evidence suggests longer paper making history in China". World Archeological Congress. August 2006. Archived from the original on 2016-01-13. Retrieved 2010-07-08.
^ a b
Tsien 1985, p. 40 uses Wade-Giles transcription
^ Lu 2015, p. 175-177.
^ Lu 2015, p. 178-179.
^ a b c Tsien 1985, p. 122
^ Tsien 1985, p. 1
^ a b c d Tsien 1985, p. 123
^ Tsien 1985, p. 105
^ Barrett 2008, p. 36.
^ a b c Wilkinson 2012, p. 909.
^ Barrett 2008, p. 37.
^ Barrett 2008, pp. 37–38.
^ Barrett 2008, p. 38.
^ Barrett 2008, p. 39.
^ a b Wilkinson 2012, p. 935.
^ a b Wilkinson 2012, p. 934.
^ Barrett 2008, p. 40.
^ DeVinne, Theo. L. The Invention of Printing. New York: Francis Hart & Co., 1876. p. 134
^ Meggs, Philip B. A History of Graphic Design. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1998. (pp 58) ISBN 0-471-29198-6
^ Quraishi, Silim "A survey of the development of papermaking in Islamic Countries", Bookbinder, 1989 (3): 29–36.
^ a b c d e Bloom, Jonathan (2001). Paper Before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 8–10, 42–45. ISBN 0-300-08955-4.
^ Paper-making and the exchange of ideas, Christine Baker, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Quote: "The problem is: no one thinks this actually happened. Sources report that there was paper making in Central Asia at least fifty years before. Further, Chinese and Muslim civilizations made paper in different ways – there's no evidence that knowledge of how to make paper was transferred at this battle."
^ a b c d e f Green, Nile (2019). "Introduction: The Frontiers of the Persianate World (ca. 800–1900)". In Green, Nile (ed.). The Persianate World: The Frontiers of a Eurasian Lingua Franca. University of California Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0520972100.
^ Ibn Khaldun, Abd Ar Rahman (2015). Rosenthal, Franz (ed.). The Muqqadimah (PDF). Purity Publications.
^ a b c Harrison, Frederick. A Book about Books. London: John Murray, 1943. p. 79.
Mandl, George. "Paper Chase: A Millennium in the Production and Use of Paper". Myers, Robin & Michael Harris (eds). A Millennium of the Book: Production, Design & Illustration in Manuscript & Print, 900–1900. Winchester: St. Paul’s Bibliographies, 1994. p. 182.
Mann, George. Print: A Manual for Librarians and Students Describing in Detail the History, Methods, and Applications of Printing and Paper Making. London: Grafton & Co., 1952. p. 79.
McMurtrie, Douglas C. The Book: The Story of Printing & Bookmaking. London: Oxford University Press, 1943. p. 63.
^ Minorky, ed. (1937). Hodud Al-'Alam, The reigns of The world: A Persian Geography (PDF). Oxford: University Press.
^ a b Al-Hamawi, Yagut (1381). Ayati, Muhammad (ed.). Mu'jam al-Udabā. Tehran: Soroush Publications. ISBN 964-7483-02-3.
^ Ibn al-Nadim (1381). Tajadod, Reza (ed.). Alfehrest (in Persian). Tehran: Asatir Publications.
^ Bloom, Jonathan M (1999). "Revolution by the Ream: A History of Paper". Aramco. 50 (3): 26–39.
^ Diana Twede (2005), "The Origins of Paper Based Packaging" (PDF), Conference on Historical Analysis & Research in Marketing Proceedings, 12: 288–300 [289], archived from the original (PDF) on July 16, 2011, retrieved 2010-03-20
^ The famous Kutubiya mosque is named so because of its location in this street
^ Bloom, Jonathan. M (2000). "The introduction of paper to the Islamic lands and the development of the illustrated manuscript". Muqarnas. 17: 17–23. doi:10.2307/1523287. JSTOR 1523287.
^ Awwād, Korkis (1984). "al-Waraq wa'l-kāḡaḏ". Majallat Al-majmaʿ Al-ʿelmi Al-ʿarabi. 23.
^ Ibn Nadim (1381). Tajadod, Reza (ed.). Alfehrest (in Persian). Asatir Publications.
^ Mahgoub, Hend; Bardon, Stephanie; Lichtblau, Dirk; Tom, Fearn; Matija, Strlič (2016). "Material Properties of Islamic Paper". Heritage Science. 4 (34). doi:10.1186/s40494-016-0103-4.
^ Penley, Knipe; Katherine, Eremi; Walton, Marc; Babini, Agnese; Rayner, Georgina (2018). "Materials and techniques of Islamic manuscripts". Heritage Science. 6 (55). doi:10.1186/s40494-018-0217-y.
^ a b c Gacek, Adam (2002). "On the Making of Local Paper: A Thirteenth Century Yemeni Recipe". Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Meiterranee. doi:10.4000/remmm.1175.
^ Jamali Yazdi, Abu Bakr (1386). Afshar, Iraj (ed.). Farrokh Nameh. Tehran: Amir Kabir (published 2007). ISBN 9640010642.
^ Jöns, Heike; Meusburger, Peter; Heffernan, Michael (2017). "Chapter 3: Papermaking: The Historical Diffusion of an Ancient Technique". Mobilities of Knowledge. Springer International Publishing. pp. 51–66.
^ Mahdavi, Farid (2003), "Review: Paper Before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World by Jonathan M. Bloom", Journal of Interdisciplinary History, MIT Press, 34 (1): 129–30, doi:10.1162/002219503322645899, S2CID 142232828
^ Lucas, Adam (2006), Wind, Water, Work: Ancient and Medieval Milling Technology, Brill Publishers, pp. 65 & 84, ISBN 90-04-14649-0
^ a b Burns 1996, p. 414
^ a b Dard Hunter (1978), Papermaking: the history and technique of an ancient craft, Courier Dover Publications, ISBN 0-486-23619-6
^ Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Part 2. p. 184.
^ a b Fischer, Steven R. (2004), A History of Writing, London: Reaktion Books, p. 264, ISBN 1-86189-101-6
^ Al-Hassani, Woodcock and Saoud, "1001 Inventions, Muslim heritage in Our World", FSTC Publishing, 2006, reprinted 2007, pp. 218-219.
^ Mahdavi, Farid (2003), "Review: Paper Before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World by Jonathan M. Bloom", Journal of Interdisciplinary History, MIT Press, 34 (1): 129–30, doi:10.1162/002219503322645899, S2CID 142232828
^ Claus Vogel (1979). A History of Indian Literature. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 309 with footnotes. ISBN 978-3-447-02010-7.
^ "The Weber MSS – Another collection of ancient manuscripts from Central Asia". Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1): 1–40. 1893.;A. F. Rudolf Hoernle (1897). Three further collections of ancient manuscripts from Central Asia (JASB, Vol LXVI, Part 1, Number 4). Asiatic Society of Bengal.
^ a b c d Tsien 1985, pp. 2–3, 356–357
^ D. C. Sircar (1996). Indian Epigraphy. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 67–68. ISBN 978-81-208-1166-9.
^ a b c d Agnieszka Helman-Ważny (2014). The Archaeology of Tibetan Books. BRILL Academic. pp. 49–60. ISBN 978-90-04-27505-8.
^ a b c d e Habib, Irfan (2011). Economic History of Medieval India, 1200-1500. Pearson Education India. pp. 95–96. ISBN 9788131727911.
^ Roxani Margariti (2014). Arnold Franklin (ed.). Jews, Christians and Muslims in Medieval and Early Modern Times: A Festschrift in Honor of Mark R. Cohen. BRILL Academic. pp. 54–55 with footnotes 40–41. ISBN 978-90-04-26784-8.
^ Bloom, Jonathan (2001). Paper Before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World. Yale University Press. p. 78. ISBN 0-300-08955-4.
^ SAK Ghori; A Rahman (1966). "Paper Technology in medieval India". Indian Journal of History of Science. 2: 135–136.
^ Yi Xumei; Lu Xiuwen (2010). Susan M. Allen; Lin Zuzao; Cheng Xiaolan; Jan Bos (eds.). The History and Cultural Heritage of Chinese Calligraphy, Printing and Library Work. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 59–61. ISBN 978-3-598-44179-0.
^ Crespo, Carmen; Vinas, Vincente (1984). "The Preservation and Restoration of Paper Records and Books: A RAMP Study with Guidelines" (PDF). United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. p. 3 note 1. Retrieved 2013-07-10.
^ Richard Leslie Hills: Papermaking in Britain 1488–1988: A Short History. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015, ISBN 978-1-4742-4127-4 (Reprint), S. 2.
^ Filipe Duarte Santos: Humans on Earth: From Origins to Possible Futures. Springer, 2012, ISBN 978-3-642-05359-7, S. 116.
^ Fuller, Neathery Batsell (2002). "A Brief history of paper". Retrieved 2011-01-24.
^ Richard L. Hills, ‘Tate, John (c.1448–1507/8)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 24 June 2015. Subscription or UK public library membership required.
^ Historie ručního papíru
^ "Dartford, cradle of Britain's papermaking industry". Archived from the original on 2 February 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^ Papiermühlen in Niederösterreich
^ Hills, Richard (1936). "Early Italian papermaking : a crucial technical revolution": 37–46. hdl:10079/bibid/11263265. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^ Papiernicze, Rękodzieło; Dąbrowski, Józef (1991). "The Papermaking Craft": 152. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^ Dabrowski, Jozef (July 2008). "Paper Manufacture in Central and Eastern Europe Before the Introduction of Paper-making Machines" (PDF): 6. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^ The Construction of the Codex In Classic- and post classic-Period Maya Civilization Maya Codex and Paper Making
^ Benz, Bruce; Lorenza Lopez Mestas; Jorge Ramos de la Vega (2006). "Organic Offerings, Paper, and Fibers from the Huitzilapa Shaft Tomb, Jalisco, Mexico". Ancient Mesoamerica.== 17 (2). pp. 283–296.
^ McCarthy, Jack. "Paper and Papermaking". The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. Camden, N.J.: Rutgers University. Archived from the original on May 2, 2020.
^ a b "Market share of the leading paper manufacturers in the United States in 2017". statista. April 2018. Archived from the original on June 10, 2020.
^ Study of monopoly power : hearings before the Subcommittee on Study of Monopoly Power of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. 1950. p. 600.
^ Root, Joshua L. (Fall 2009). "Something Will Drop: Socialists, Unions and Trusts in Nineteenth-Century Holyoke" (PDF). Historic Journal of Massachusetts. 37 (2): 38. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 24, 2017.
^ "Stabilizing the Paper Industry, A Lesson for Those Who Will Learn". Pulp and Paper Magazine of Canada. Vol. XIX. June 16, 1921. p. 635.
^ "Eight Paper Towns". The Inland Printer. Vol. II, no. 10. Chicago. July 1885.
^ "Emory Alexander Ellsworth". Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers. III (8): 480. October 1916. In 1879 Mr. Ellsworth left the firm of Davis & Ellsworth to become principal assistant and head draftsman for D. H. & A. B. Tower, of Holyoke, who were the largest firm of paper mill architects in the country at that time, and who designed no less than twenty paper mills in the city of Holyoke alone.
^ Tower, J.W. (1902). "Memoir of Ashley Bemis Tower". Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers. 49 (941): 361.
^ "Manufacturing and Technical". Engineering News-record. XXIII: 528. May 31, 1890. Six Hennessey Boilers, made by the B. F. Hawkins Iron Works, of Springfield, Mass., are showing remarkable results at the Kimberly & Clark paper mills, Appleton, Wis...The entire plant was designed by D. H. & A. B. Tower, of Holyoke, Mass.
^ Heinrich, Thomas; Batchelor, Bob (2004). "Origins and Growth, 1872-1916". Kotex, Kleenex, Huggies: Kimberly-Clark and the Consumer Revolution in American Business. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press. pp. 20–22. ISBN 9780814209769.
^ Weeks, Lyman Horace (1916). A History of Paper-manufacturing in the United States, 1690-1916. Lockwood Trade Journal Company. p. 271.
^ An Assessment of the Economic Contribution of Pulp, Paper and Converting to the State of Wisconsin (PDF) (Report). Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation; University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point. August 5, 2019. pp. 16–20. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 30, 2019.
^ Tsien, Tsuen-Hsuin 1985, pp. 68–73
^ Lucas 2005, p. 28, fn. 70
^ Burns 1996, pp. 414f.: It has also become universal to talk of paper "mills" (even of 400 such mills at Fez!), relating these to the hydraulic wonders of Islamic society in east and west. All our evidence points to non-hydraulic hand production, however, at springs away from rivers which it could pollute.
^ Thompson 1978, p. 169: European papermaking differed from its precursors in the mechanization of the process and in the application of water power. Jean Gimpel, in The Medieval Machine (the English translation of La Revolution Industrielle du Moyen Age), points out that the Chinese and Muslims used only human and animal force. Gimpel goes on to say : "This is convincing evidence of how technologically minded the Europeans of that era were. Paper had traveled nearly halfway around the world, but no culture or civilization on its route had tried to mechanize its manufacture."'
^ Jöns, H (2017). "Papermaking: The Historical Diffusion of an Ancient Technique". Mobilities of Knowledge. Knowledge and Space. Vol. 10. Springer International Publications. pp. 51–66. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-44654-7_3. ISBN 978-3-319-44653-0. S2CID 192186123.
^ Donald Routledge Hill (1996), A history of engineering in classical and medieval times, Routledge, pp. 169–71, ISBN 0-415-15291-7
^ Leor Halevi (2008), "Christian Impurity versus Economic Necessity: A Fifteenth-Century Fatwa on European Paper", Speculum, Cambridge University Press, 83 (4): 917–945 [917–8], doi:10.1017/S0038713400017073, S2CID 159987048
^ Burns 1996, pp. 414−417
^ a b c Burns 1996, pp. 417f.
^ Thomas F. Glick (2014). Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 385. ISBN 9781135459321.
^ Burns 1996, p. 417
^ Stromer 1960
^ Stromer 1993, p. 1
^ a b c Göttsching, Lothar; Pakarinen, Heikki (2000), "1", Recycled Fiber and Deinking, Papermaking Science and Technology, vol. 7, Finland: Fapet Oy, pp. 12–14, ISBN 952-5216-07-1
^ Koops, Matthias. Historical account of the substances which have been used to describe events, and to convey ideas, from the earliest date, to the invention of paper. London: Printed by T. Burton, 1800.
^ Carruthers, George. Paper in the Making. Toronto: The Garden City Press Co-Operative, 1947.
^ Matthew, H.C.G. and Brian Harrison. "Koops. Matthias." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: from the earliest times to the year 2000, Vol. 32. London: Oxford University Press, 2004: 80.
^ Burger, Peter. Charles Fenerty and his Paper Invention. Toronto: Peter Burger, 2007. ISBN 978-0-9783318-1-8 pp.30–32
^ Burger, Peter. Charles Fenerty and his Paper Invention. Toronto: Peter Burger, 2007. ISBN 978-0-9783318-1-8
^ Suarez, S.J., Michael F.; Woudhuysen, H.R. (2013). The Book: A Global History. OUP Oxford. ISBN 9780199679416.
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vtePaper
Paper engineering / Papermaking
History
Battle of Talas
Missal of Silos
Originators
Cai Lun
Zuo Bo/Tso Po/Tso Tzǔ-yi
Damjing
Developers
Matthias Koops
Friedrich Gottlob Keller
Charles Fenerty
Scholars
Thomas Francis Carter
Dard Hunter
Tsien Tsuen-hsuin
Types
Acid-free
Air-laid
Amate
Asphalt
Banana
Bible
Blotting
Bond
Bristol
Carbon
Cardboard
Cardstock
Cartridge
Coated
Construction
Contact
Copy
Carbonless
Correction
Cotton (rag)
Crêpe
Display
Dó
Electrical insulation
Genkō yōshi
Glassine
Graph
Greaseproof
Hemp
India
Inkjet
Ingres
Korean
Kraft
Butcher
Laid
Lokta
Manila
Mummy
Newsprint
Onionskin
Origami
Paperboard
Parchment
Photographic
Plastic-coated
Red rosin
Rice
Rolling
Scritta
Security
Seed
Stone
Tar
Thermal
Tissue
Tracing
Transfer
Tree-free
Wallpaper
Washi
Wasli
Waterproof
Wax
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Wove
Writing
Xuan
Materials
China clay
Corrugated fiberboard
Fiber crop
Paper chemicals
Papyrus
Wood pulp
Specifications
Density
Grammage
Paper sizes
Surface chemistry of paper
Units of paper quantity
Wet strength
Manufactureand process
Bleaching of wood pulp
Calender
Conical refiner
Deinking
Elemental chlorine free
Environmental impact of paper
Handmade paper
Hollander beater
Kraft process
Organosolv
Paper machine
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Papermaking
Soda pulping
Sulfite process
Industry
Paper industry
Canada
Europe
India
Japan
United States
Paper mill
List
Uses
Lined paper
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Cardboard
Clothing
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Notebooks
Watercolor paper
Paper money
Beverage cartons
Category
Commons
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_paper&oldid=1211826365"
Categories: PaperIndustrial historyHistory of technologyForest historyTopical history overviewsHidden categories: CS1 uses Chinese-language script (zh)CS1 Chinese-language sources (zh)CS1 Persian-language sources (fa)CS1 maint: unfit URLCS1 errors: missing periodicalCS1: Julian–Gregorian uncertaintyArticles with short descriptionShort description is different from WikidataAll articles lacking reliable referencesArticles lacking reliable references from March 2014Articles containing Arabic-language textArticles containing Ottoman Turkish (1500-1928)-language textWikipedia articles needing clarification from April 2016Wikipedia articles needing clarification from October 2021All articles with unsourced statementsArticles with unsourced statements from October 2021Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from March 2015Commons category link from WikidataCS1: long volume value
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