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Often in school in the US teachers prepare collections of photocopied notes and exercises to give to students. They are usually bound by a single staple in the corner. I'm not entirely sure of whether this practice exists in Italy, but as a teacher in the US, I am often looking for this term.

The closest that I have found is fascicolo, but I wonder if this is closer to the English dossier which would not be accurate.

Can somebody who went to school in Italy provide me with the appropriate term for this?

gbutters
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  • In Spanish and in Catalan, we say dossier, but I don't know which is the term in Italian. – Charo Apr 28 '16 at 19:27
  • Interesting ... dossier in English usually refers to a file the government (or other entity) puts together about your activities when they want to build a legal case against you. – gbutters Apr 28 '16 at 21:43
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    "Dossier" is used as a loan word also in Italian, with the same meaning you described (not necessarily governmental, could be related to journalism or medical facts), i.e. a set of information about a topic/individual. A generic collective noun for a set of related "paper copies" of something/sheets of paper is a "plico" (plico di fotocopie). The more precise one, related to education, is "dispensa", as pointed out in an answer below – Diego Martinoia Apr 29 '16 at 07:35

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I believe that the proper term is dispensa, sometimes used in the plural form which is dispense.

  • (dispensa universitaria,) sintesi delle lezioni tenute da un docente durante l'anno accademico. (Sabatini Colletti)

By the way, I've only seen this happening when I was a university student.

A. Darwin
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    I'll add that the English term handout is gaining traction inside the university (funnily enough I've heard it very often but only from humanities students) – Denis Nardin Apr 29 '16 at 12:18
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    @DenisNardin I've never heard about it. – A. Darwin Apr 29 '16 at 12:43
  • I think it's referring to sheets of paper containing long extracts of the text or photos of inscrptions that is analyzed during a seminar, so that the audience can follow what's going on (the friends that told me are for the most part in phylology or epigraphy) – Denis Nardin Apr 29 '16 at 12:50
  • In Australia, we wouldn't understand "packet of paper" - handout certainly though! Most likely I'd assume – Tim Malone May 05 '16 at 22:44
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I'm Italian and I don't know terms for your description. When I went to the pre-university school teachers give rarely photocopies. I remember some generic terms like 'schede' for example.

Charo
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Mikedev
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In elementary school and middle school, they are referred as schede. In high school the term fotocopie is much more common.

This is because thinking about the teacher giving you a scheda might even make you feel childish or something, although this is subjective.

At the university, a handout is almost always called dispensa.

Andrea Lazzarotto
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