Use plain, white, 20-lb., 8 1/2- by 11-inch paper. Dot-matrix printing is acceptable if the copy is strong and dark otherwise, bring your floppy disc into a computer lab where you can print your paper using a better printer.
Use plain black printing off a good laser or bubble-jet printer. Justified margins tend to create some word-divisions and spacing that are not appropriate. Do not use justified margins (even right margins), even though your word-processor makes that look really nifty. Use one-inch margins (or a bit more, never less), all the way around the edge of your text. Don't use anything fancy and avoid the non-serif fonts (except for headlines, if you have any), as they can become difficult to read after a while cursive scripts are forbidden. A serif typing font should be used, something like Times, Times Roman, or Times New Roman in a 12-point font size. Double-space all typing in all documents.Word-processing is not just a good thing, a clever technological device to make your writing look good it makes the composing and editing processes much easier and (some people claim) even fun it is technology that you ignore to your peril!.Here are some generic suggestions for formatting your paper, attempted answers to the inevitable question: "What's this paper supposed to look like?" But remember, if you have any doubts or questions, ask your instructor! The college's Guide to Writing Research Papers contains a section on formatting papers, MLA-style, that should be helpful. If all instructors could agree on one simple format, that would be nice, and that style would probably be something easy to remember, like the style recommended by the Modern Language Association. The only way to know that your papers are going to conform exactly with what your instructors are looking for is to ask what they want! Ask to look at a sample paper. There are nearly as many different possible formats for writing a paper as there are instructors.