ABSTRACT
Word processors can do many things which typewriters cannot. With a word processor, material which has been typed in can be altered at a later date quickly and easily, without using correcting fluid or cutting-and-pasting. Word processors may also reduce the cost of copy typing when material is redrafted. But if the only purpose of buying a word processor is to make a typist more productive, then at the moment it is cheaper to employ many typists, each with an electric typewriter, than to employ a smaller number, each with a word processor. If conventional typists spent all their working hours completely retyping drafts of course material, the gain in a typist's productivity by using a word processor might well be enough to save several thousand pounds a year. At the time of writing, the majority of word processors in distance teaching establishments are used by secretaries and clerical staff for administration and for copy typing.
