Printing, annotating and citing for coursework and research
By Nasir Uddin Shamim ยท Founder, PrintxPDF
Short answer: Students save the most paper by printing academic PDFs two pages per sheet and double-sided, which turns a 24-page paper into six sheets. Annotate the PDF rather than the paper copy so highlights stay searchable, and record the author, title, date, URL and access date for every web source you cite.
A reading list is a printing problem before it is a reading problem. Twelve papers at twenty-four pages each is nearly three hundred sheets if you let the printer have its way, and a sixty-slide deck at one slide per page is sixty more. These four guides cover the settings that turn a paper into six sheets instead of twenty-four, the annotation habits that survive until revision week, and the citation formats markers actually check.
Every guide in this topic
- How to print journal articles and papers properly, Print journal articles and papers without burning a ream: two pages per sheet, duplex, binding margins and right settings for JSTOR, PubMed and arXiv PDFs.
- How to annotate PDFs for studying, Annotate PDFs so the notes still help in June: a colour system, margin notes in your own words, free apps for Windows, Mac and iPad, and exporting highlights.
- How to cite a web page in APA, MLA and Chicago, Correct APA 7th, MLA 9th and Chicago 17th formats for citing a web page, with examples, what to do when the author or date is missing, and access date rules.
- How to print lecture slides without wasting 60 pages, Print lecture slides as 3, 6 or 9 per page, kill the animation build steps that triple the page count, and turn a 60-slide deck into five duplexed sheets.