[HappyCatMachine]

It turns out that Pages for iPad can import docx styles quite fluidly. Pages on the Mac can do the same. If you can export to docx then it can pretty much be imported anywhere.

Avoid RTF. As transportable a file format as that is there is nothing on the iPad that will read and allow you to edit RTF files. RTF requires a computer to translate before it can be brought into the iPad.

If you can get a native Pages doc then wonderful but as Pages will import word docs and word docs are primarily what students are using to hand papers in I would recommend that format over any other. I'm no fan of Microsoft but the fact remains that Word is what most people have access to and I know of NO university that will take papers in pages format.