Fonts for Academic Papers

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Best Fonts for Academic Papers


Some good Serif fonts:

* Georgia - Nice and round, and a relatively big font.
* Garamond - A good alternative to Times.
* Palatino - Another good alternative.
* Century - Don’t confuse it with Century Gothic!

For the headings of the paper, I like to have a different font. Whether you change the typeface or not, it will make the paper a little more aesthetically pleasing. I know papers aren’t about experimenting with typography, but sometimes you just can’t resist, right?

When using a Serif font in the copy, which you should be doing anyways, I like to put a nice bold Sans font in the headings. Sans Serif fonts are nicer to look at when they’re big and in short use, such as a heading.

A simple font like Lucida Sans (bold) works just fine. Be careful with that font though, it’s not very nice when it isn’t bold (unless it’s huge). For headings I like to have a font that isn’t too wide, like Verdana, Tahoma or Arial, unless it’s nicer looking, like Lucida. Georgia works nicely in headings (not bold works best) too.

Font size is something that you shouldn’t really have to think about. Here’s a short list on how to pick the right size:

* Small = bad.
* Too big = teacher thinks you’re just trying to fill the page. Bad.
* Just right = 16px max.

14-16px is a good range. A font like Georgia looks good at 16px, but it’s up to you how big you go. You don’t want it to look like you have one big heading, or your entire copy is bold. Copy should look like copy! Don’t forget that line height too! It’s something people tend to forget, but make sure you’re at at least 1.5 spacing.

I wish the best of you on your paper ventures, and maybe you’ll get a little aid in the grading if your paper looks nice :P