S. Worthen | Weblog

There are lots of ways to fasten together sheets of paper into a coherent unit. The ones which particularly concern us today are staples, and an absence of fasteners. Glue may indicate a magazine, a journal, or a book. It is ambiguous as a binding material, I believe. Spiral bindings usually indicate high-end brochures, although they can also indicate small-circulation academic journals.

purple_pen asserts that if it's stapled, it's a magazine. Some of the free "newspapers" available on the Underground are held together by staples. Does that make them magazines? C. requested a poll on the subject, so here you are. The broad question of identifying types of media by their bindings is a rather interesting topic, but harder to squish into a single poll.

[Poll #1354399]

Ideally, there would be a "has" before "staples" in that poll question.