Guardian is a great choice. Although it's a newspaper/magazine font, I think it runs very well for technical and academic texts.

Utopia, Iowan and Charter seems to be good options too.

Liberation Serif has the same proportions as Times, and wide language support (Cyrillic and Greek etc). It is in the public domain. I don't know if you like it's style though.

You can go for Palatino, Georgia, Century (Schoolbook), these are on most Systems, although on windows you might need to look for the Palatino clone Book Antiqua. If you are on a mac the Hoefler Text is related to the Garamond tradition and a nice font, although it has Old Style Numbers.

If you use MS office you can go with Constantia.

Free fonts consider Gentium, Liberation, Libertine, Bergamo, Deja Vu Serif you can find on fontsquirrel.com.
Have a look at the progress of Crimson Text.

Utopia and Minion in an older version are free for LaTeX, I am not sure about the licence here, but at least they can be found in some latex font directory, google will help you here.

I would not recommend to go for something to warm or to progressive. Academics certainly benefits from a departure of TNR, but it should not be a noticeable font so to speak.

Classical text faces include Janson Text, Sabon, (Adobe) Garamond, (Adobe or Williams) Caslon, Baskerville (Original), Minion among others. It does not need to be this conservative, they are just options. Guardian is a fine one too.

Thanks, but rather than asking for typeface recommendations, I'm interested if there will be any problems with faces designed for "cramped" use like the two I mentioned being used in situations with huge amounts of space between lines. The samples from the vendor are set with tight leading and look good, but that's not how I'll be using them.

Any thoughts on that, or is it a non-issue?

There is no problem at all. Any font could be set with huge leading.

You're lucky to have a choice. In Brazil, academic works are almost always made with Arial or Times due to stupid local standards.

Thank you.

Times was originally designed for a newspaper, and has somewhat cramped proportions, compared to classic book faces such Bembo, Garamond, and Caslon.

Nonetheless, it works just about anywhere.

I suggest you download a few of the free faces mentioned here and try them out.

If they seem OK, then go with one of those, or invest in a commercial font of similar effect.

If you are looking for a paid font, have a look at the work of Dino dos Santos, his http://new.myfonts.com/person/Dino_dos_Santos/DStype foundry fonts are quite affordable, even for students. I got myself two cuts of Capsa, that is all I need for papers, but have a look at Musee and Leitura too.

@forrest

Double spacing and Times New Roman are examples of many of the anachronisms inherent to the world of academia. It makes little sense for most printed (not for publishing) academic work, and makes even less sense if it is handed in PDF format to be read (more often than not, one assumes) on-screen.

Anachronisms aside, if the requirement is to hand the work in using as a PDF document, you should ideally be looking for a typeface which is designed to have extremely good screen legibility (a really well hinted font). I personally find that Bitstream's Iowan Pro and Charter Pro fit the bill, while remaining affordable (remember, you probably need only 2~3 weights for average academic work). Of these two Iowan would probably be easier on the eyes for extended text.

You may also want to consider Trump Mediaeval Office, which was re-designed for office communication and to be a TNR replacement. It is also a superbly well hinted font, specifically designed for on-screen reading.

Adam,

So I should just tell my professors that the work shouldn't be double-spaced? Interesting. Did you successfully lobby your professors to change a nearly univeral and arbitrary requirement at your school? I'd been interested in how you that went.