An exercise book or composition book is a

notebook A notebook (also known as a notepad, writing pad, drawing pad, or legal pad) is a book or stack of paper pages that are often ruled and used for purposes such as note-taking, journaling or other writing, drawing, or scrapbooking and more. ...

that is used in schools to copy down schoolwork and notes. A student will usually have different exercise books for each separate lesson or subject. The exercise book format is different for some subjects: for the majority of subjects, the exercise book will contain lined paper with a

margin Margin may refer to: Physical or graphical edges *Margin (typography), the white space that surrounds the content of a page * Continental margin, the zone of the ocean floor that separates the thin oceanic crust from thick continental crust *Leaf ...

, but for other subjects such as

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

, the exercise book will contain squared paper to aid in the drawing of graphs, tables or other diagrams. Exercise books may act as a primary record of students' learning efforts. For younger pupils, books are often collected at the end of each lesson for review, scoring, or grading. Loose worksheets may be pasted into the book so that they are bound with other work. In some schools, exercise books may be colour-coded depending on the subject. For example, biology might be green and algebra blue. The exercise book was also called ''version book'' historically, and is called ''khata'' in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, ''scribbler'' in Canada, '' jotter'' in

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

, and ''copy book'' in Ireland. The US equivalent is ''composition book'', which traditionally has a distinctive cover pattern.

Size

Australia

The traditional size of a school exercise book in Australia is , which may be approximated by B5 (176 × 250 mm). Larger A4 (previously foolscap) notebooks are also very commonly used.

Czech Republic and Slovakia

Exercise books manufactured in the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

and

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

are labeled by three-digit codes that encode their size, number of pages, and ruling. The first numeral stands for the size: * 4 for

A4 paper ISO 216 is an International Organization for Standardization, international standard for paper sizes, used around the world except in North America and parts of Latin America. The standard defines the "A", "B" and "C" series of paper sizes, wh ...

* 5 for A5 paper * 6 for A6 paper The second numeral stands for the number of pages: * 1 for 10 pages * 2 for 20 pages * 4 for 40 pages * 6 for 60 pages * 8 for 80 pages The third numeral stands for the ruling: * 0 for blank exercise book * 1 for lined paper—lines at 20 mm * 2 for lined paper—lines at 16 mm * 3 for lined paper—lines at 12 mm * 4 for lined paper—lines at 8 mm * 5 for squared paper—squares are 5 x 5 mm * 10 for squared paper—squares are 10 x 10 mm

Ireland

''Copy books'' sold in Ireland usually come with 32, 40, 88, or 120 pages. The pages can be blank, ruled, and/or squared.

New Zealand

School exercise books in New Zealand generally conform to standard NZS 8132:1984 (Specification for school stationery). An alphanumeric code is used to describe the exercise book's binding, format, and size. The first numerals(s) refer to the binding: * 1 for softcover * 2 for hardcover * 8 for spiral bound The letter refers to the format: * A for unruled * B for 7 mm ruled * I for 9 mm ruled * F for 12 mm ruled * L for alternating pages unruled and 7 mm ruled * J for 5 mm quad * E for 7 mm quad * H for 10 mm quad The last numeral refers to the size: * 4 for * 5 for * 8 for (A4 size)

Russia

The most common Russian exercise notebooks, codified in the Russian industry standard, are: * A "thin" notebook (, ''school notebook'') with 12, 18, or 24 sheets, having size 170 x 205 mm. They are stapled through the fold, which, aided by their thinness, allows to open them completely flat, simplifying writing on the left side. These notebooks are used for daily work in primary school like teaching

penmanship Penmanship is the technique of writing with the hand using a writing instrument. Today, this is most commonly done with a pen, or pencil, but throughout history has included many different writing implement, implements. The various generic a ...

and

arithmetic Arithmetic is an elementary branch of mathematics that deals with numerical operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. In a wider sense, it also includes exponentiation, extraction of roots, and taking logarithms. ...

, and are often collected for review and grading. These notebooks are called ''copybooks'' at English language lessons in Russian schools. * A "thick" notebook (, ''general-use notebook'') with more than 24 sheets and up to 96 sheets, having width at least 144 mm and height no more than 297 mm (same height as A4 paper size). These notebooks are intended for usage in middle and high school for tasks like lesson notes, long-term projects, essays, laboratory experiments, etc. Other sizes and number of sheets are permitted. The preferable sizes are (in mm): 210 x 297 (A4), 203 x 288, 203 x 275, 170 x 203, 148 x 210 (A5), 144 x 203. "Thin" notebooks must be either ruled with 8 mm spacing between the lines, or graph-ruled with 5 mm or 7 mm squares. "Thick" notebooks must be either ruled with 6 mm, 7 mm, 8 mm, 9 mm spacing between the lines, or graph-ruled with 3 mm, 4 mm, 5 mm, 6 mm, or 7 mm squares. The paper for cursive writing uses pairs of lines 4 mm apart, with 8 mm between the pairs. They may also have angled lines at 65 degrees to vertical to provide additional guidance. The lines can have gray, blue, green, or purple colour. The vertical margin line must have a red or orange color. Vertical margin is optional for graph-ruled notebooks.

United Kingdom

There are three commonly used sizes of exercise book in the UK: A5 (148×210 mm), A4 (210×297 mm), and 178×229 mm (approximately 7″×9″, based on a traditional size used before the UK adopted

ISO 216 ISO 216 is an international standard for paper sizes, used around the world except in North America and parts of Latin America. The standard defines the "A", "B" and "C" series of paper sizes, which includes the A4, the most commonly availabl ...

paper sizes). They usually come with 32, 48, 64, or 80 pages which can be plain, ruled, or squared. In Scotland, exercise books are commonly known as "jotters".

United States

In the United States, exercise books used by writers and students are known as ''composition books''. Although available in several colors, the original marbled black-and-white cover, with its generic label on the front, is the most common. Typically, they have dimensions of or and 20, 40, 80 or 100 sheets. Composition books can be ruled or graphed. The papers in a composition book often have the baseline and cap line printed in blue to aid writing, with a (sometimes red) vertical line for a

on the left hand of every page. Traditionally, the inside back cover contains a table of the weights and measures of the English ( imperial) system printed for reference; however, this feature has become less common in countries that have adopted the

metric system The metric system is a system of measurement that standardization, standardizes a set of base units and a nomenclature for describing relatively large and small quantities via decimal-based multiplicative unit prefixes. Though the rules gover ...

. Sometimes a

multiplication table In mathematics, a multiplication table (sometimes, less formally, a times table) is a mathematical table used to define a multiplication binary operation, operation for an algebraic system. The decimal multiplication table was traditionally tau ...

, or

grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

punctuation Punctuation marks are marks indicating how a piece of writing, written text should be read (silently or aloud) and, consequently, understood. The oldest known examples of punctuation marks were found in the Mesha Stele from the 9th century BC, c ...

tips, are also found on the inside back cover. The inside front cover typically has a place to put one's weekly class schedule. Composition books are traditionally bound through the fold—that is, the pages are folded, and stitched vertically along the fold. This allows to open them completely flat, simplifying writing on the left side, and also makes them significantly more durable than loose leaf pads or spiral notebooks. Exercise books with fewer sheets, such as Blue books, are used in many post-secondary schools during assessment tests.

Examples

File:Russian school graph paper.jpg, Squared 12-sheet and 18-sheet exercise books used in Russian primary schools File:Graph-ruled_composition_book,_4_squares_per_inch,_80_pages.jpg, Graph-ruled composition book used in the United States File:Blue-book-12-sheet.jpg, A 12-sheet Blue book used in many post-secondary schools in the United States

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Exercise Book School terminology Notebooks