Cut-and-Paste

Part of this job has been learning about the qualities of archival material in general. It wasn't until I was reading a manuscript by Addison Verrill—Yale's first professor of zoology and most-said name in IZ on any given day—did Eric mention that this is what cut-and-paste used to look like. The computer function has a physical origin: many original manuscripts have edits in which pieces of paper were literally cut and pasted on top of words or added entire sections of text. 

Heavily cut-and-pasted page from Verrill's manuscript 

Verrill used old pieces of paper and flipped them over as his white-out—can barely
make out the check-boxes on the other side of the paper scrap

Extended manuscript page from paragraph section cut-and-pasted

Verrill never published this edited version of his manuscript. I'm amazed that more manuscripts aren't simply tiny bits of paper glued together, looking at the rate of my own edits.