📄 Stuff Every Paper Scout Should Know: the Study Guide

The cheat sheet

The whole guide on one screen. Screenshot it, print it, stick it on the fridge.

• The word paper comes from papyrus, an ancient Greek name for the Cyperus papyrus plant used in Egypt.
• Thin pith strips were laid in two perpendicular layers and pounded with a mallet into a sheet.
• Cai Lun, a Han dynasty court official, is traditionally credited with inventing paper around 105 CE.
• His paper used mulberry and other bast fibers along with fishnets, old rags, and hemp waste.
• Papermaking spread to the Islamic world, where the process was refined and machinery designed for bulk manufacturing.
• The earliest use of water-powered mills for preparing pulp dates to Samarkand in the 8th century.
• In Eastern Asia, three traditional papermaking fibers are abaca, kozo, and gampi.
• In the Himalayas, paper is made from the lokta plant and used for calligraphy, printing, and book arts.
• European papermaking moulds used metallic wire, and watermarks were well established by 1300 CE.
• Modern papermaking began with the Fourdrinier machine, which produces a continuous roll rather than single sheets.
• They invented the machine and process to use wood pulp, ending nearly 2,000 years of pulped rags.
• Papermaking makes a dilute suspension of fibers in water called furnish, then drains it through a screen.