The College Greening: Paper-less Papers

I consider myself a pretty eco-friendly gal, even in the college environment, where extraneous energy use is a very real problem. Over the next few weeks I would like to document some of the ways schools are helping their students be conscious environmental citizens.

In high school I imagined college as a place filled with stacks of essays, papers littering my desk, page after page of thesis material printed and ready to give me credit for all my hard work. But the reality is as an English major in this technology age, the number of papers I have physically handed in to my professors is a whopping 1.

Thanks to the development of online academic tools like Blackboard and WebAdvisor, students are able (and in my case, highly encouraged) to turn in papers online, making the final printout unnecessary. Other paper-saving techniques offered by Blackboard include posted items the professor can upload, saving hundreds of pounds of extraneous printouts. With this tool, students can choose to print the assignment if they want, but most of the time it can be read without a physical copy, on the site or through download. While five or ten pages of type may not seem like a burden, multiply that number by the tens, or sometimes hundreds, of students in a modern university class- the numbers quickly grow.

With a personal computer or laptop being an invariable necessity in today’s college environment, Blackboard has not only bloomed, but the actual development of papers has greatly changed. When I write, I write on the screen, and I realize I am one of the few who use notecards or print out drafts (and when I do, double-sided printing is my best friend). Mistakes no longer require me to throw out a piece of paper, as was the case before the personal computer. I don’t know what this says for the quality of writing, but I think it not only improves logical arguments thanks to the quickness with which many people can type as opposed to physically write, it also saves paper.

Ironically in my case, the professor most adept at the use of Blackboard for posting assignments, syllabi, and videos as well as uploading papers, is an English professor. In fact, the entire English department at my school is fully behind the endeavor, especially with anti-plagiarism sites like TurnItIn.com, which compare student’s papers to a database of known essays and papers-for-purchase as well as every paper previously submitted to the site. This not only supports student integrity, but saves time and energy when it comes to grading, with the added bonus of electronic paper return with notes courtesy of Microsoft Word.

WebAdvisor, a more individual concept site for school, gives students information on grades, finance, and housing without the use of paper. Report cards are a thing of the past, and paper in the 21st century is turning obsolete. Even our books don’t require it anymore. More and more it seems the way to save trees is to “write on the Blackboard.”