Recently, as I was driving down the Row, I spotted one of my freshman year dormmates sprinting past Sigma Chi, clutching a crumpled stack of papers. His hipster glasses were completely fogged from the exertion, and, as I yelled out to ask him if he needed a ride somewhere, he barely looked back as he wheezed, “Running’s...faster...Must...turn in...problem set...”

I watched him disappear beyond the arches of Braun Music Center and pondered a great injustice of the Stanford world: At a school that flaunts its technological pedigree, why in the hell are we still required to turn in hard copies of assignments?

Most of us have been there. It’s 9:47 a.m. You have class in 13 minutes. Suddenly, your printer announces that it is out of ink. You rush through your dorm, trying to find someone with a printer. When that inevitably fails, you email yourself the assignment and go to the computer cluster, praying that there is money on your account to print. There isn’t.

Ultimately, you bike to the LAIR, discover that the money-loading machine is broken, bike to Meyer, load money on your account, and finally print your assignment. At 10:12 a.m. you burst into your lecture class, only to discover that papers will be collected at the end. You spend the next 38 minutes drawing angry, jagged doodles in your notes and muttering that you could have slept an extra 20 minutes if only you hadn’t been forced to turn in a hard copy of your paper.

But, it doesn’t have to be this way! Dearest professors and TAs, why are electronic copies not the default mode of delivery? If you are going to post our reading on Coursework, it seems only fair that you be willing to receive as well as give.

I know some TAs claim that they “like to write comments on papers, so a hard-copy is essential.” Aside from the bald lie that TAs enjoy commenting on papers, a soft copy does not prevent such a thing from occurring. In Word, one can easily insert comments electronically.

Could it be that technological ineptitude is stopping Stanford from moving on to an era of reason and convenience? In that case, graders, take note: To insert a comment into a document in Word, click on Insert. Go to Comment. Click on it. Now you may comment on a paper. You can deduct points from problem sets, share your insights, etc.

Electronic copies are win-win: Students save paper, and professors could copy and paste comments from other papers to save time grading and get back to researching the things that actually interest them. The only downside that I see to this option is that comments cannot be disguised behind illegible pencil scrapings, so graders would actually have to type logical comments.

Some might call my argument one of laziness. I think of it more as an argument of efficiency. Electronic copies are more time efficient, as well as more energy efficient.

Think of all of the paper we would save if standard protocol were to submit assignments electronically.

Let’s say, conservatively, that every undergrad at Stanford submits at least 20 pages of material in a quarter. This figure includes problem sets, research papers, IHUM essays, etc. 7,000 multiplied by 20 is 140,000 sheets of paper. That is equivalent to 6,720 pounds of trees, which is roughly the same as clearing out the entire Papa New Guinea garden during fall quarter and decimating the redwood grove by the Graduate School of Business during winter quarter. Let’s not even start with ink and toner, which can be harmful environmental hazards.

Some classes try to be environmentally progressive by asking for students to submit papers printed on both sides. My Introduction to Earth Systems class was one such offender. Double-sided printing is as progressive as a doctor curing melancholia by bloodletting one pint instead of two. As a further annoyance, if a student chooses to print his paper double-sided in a cluster or library, he is charged for the number of sides with text, not for the number of pages printed. So, an honors thesis will cost five dollars, any way you slice it. This starts to add up when you are like my friend who already has gone through fourteen drafts.

It is almost embarrassing that I have to write a column about soft copies versus electronic copies. Electronic copies are so clearly advantageous over hard copies, that I really do not understand who still needs convincing. They are more efficient. They use fewer resources. And they enable students to sleep in an extra 20 minutes. Students of Stanford, demand your right to an extra 20 minutes of sleep. Demand electronic submissions in your classes.

Jackie Bernstein realizes the irony that she writes for a newspaper. If you would like to comment on her article, feel free to do so electronically at jaber@stanford.edu