Write it outBetween the green movement and the habits of the mobile computing device age, there’s a growing movement against the unnecessary use of paper.

Let’s state that a different way: more and more people think it’s evil to use paper documents.

Even though paper comes from a renewable resource, there are many downsides to the process of making paper, including pollution, clutter, and garbage.

When it comes to writing (and computing in general), more and more people are getting in the habit of doing everything on a computer screen: writing, editing, and reading.

As a member of Generation X, I spent many, many years both handwriting and using a typewriter to create documents. Every single assignment that I did in high school was done by hand. 90% of the assignments that I did in university were either done by hand or on an electric typewriter.

I use a heck of a lot of paper at work, too. I’m not proud of this, it’s just the habit that I’ve developed.

I’m trying to cut back on my use of paper, at least a little bit, but it’s not going away.

Here’s the thing: I do my best document editing on paper.

I’m doing a little experiment at the moment whereby I’m taking a blog post of about 800 words and I’m forcing myself to edit it. A lot. I have a goal of editing and proofing the post 15 times to see if I can really make something exceptional. I’ve even set up a separate blog to track the editing process, mainly for my own information, but I’ll link to it when this project is done for anyone who’s curious to see.

Here’s the thing that I’m noticing about the editing process: the more substantial, higher quality edits are occurring on paper.

  • I can edit for spelling and grammar reasonably well on screen.
  • I can rearrange sentences or phrases fairly well on screen, normally within the same paragraph.

BUT

  • When it comes to analyzing a paragraph to determine whether it’s necessary
  • When I need to determine if the paragraph as a whole makes sense
  • When it comes to determining whether or not entire sections of a document flow well

I’m reliant on paper.

There’s something about being able to lay out the pages side by side that I’ve never been able (or interested) to do either efficiently or effectively onscreen.

My conclusion is that paper is still required to do effective editing. Even if some trees must die.

Now that I’ll be barred from ever joining the green movement, I’d like to hear your thoughts. Are you able to do 100% of your blog post or document editing (including BIG documents) on screen? If so, how the heck do you do it?!?

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