This paper analyzes the emergence of the paper as a kind of writing in the area of the Humanities that, in recent times, and with institutional support, has been imposed as the nearly unique and acceptable kind of academic discourse. The aim of this paper is, first, to study the main characteristics of this kind of writing, based on information in the manuals and instructions for paper writing and, secondly, to signal its implications for the intellectual work in general and for the work in Latin America in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]