Secretly, you made the teacher's day. Instead of having to read and try to grasp your ten pages of rambling, nonsensical prose strewn with grammatical errors and logical dead-ends, he or she got to hand you a zero on a technicality. Try turning in your make-up paper on A4-sized paper instead of 8.5x11 and see if you get away with that.

I call bull crap. Standard is blue OR black ink. IF it's true go argue the point they have no right.

your teacher ASKED you to write it by hand? :| I'm doing my masters, and I'd say since my first year of college (2002) teachers have begged us to type up our assignments. one even said "listen, you're allowed to write your papers by hand. but I HATE that. It makes it so much harder to read. I can't promise you that I won't be pissed off about your writing and it won't affect your grade. PLEASE TYPE IT UP!" your teacher is weird. and an ass, because blue is a standard pen colour in schools and business environment.

you should have just photocopied the paper. blue turns to black in a photocopier.

doesn't make sense. who will write 10 page paper instead of typing and printing them out? it doesn't like a reasonable requirment at all.

If OP is a student in any health care or medical field, YDI. If not, FYL, appeal, the teacher's just being an arse. And to the guy who says you can't get a passport or driver's licence using blue ink, you're wrong. I was given a blue pen to fill out my driver's licence application when I got mine. granted, it's been several years, but I doubt the rules have changed. Both blue and black are acceptable almost universally, with the exception of health care. We despise the evil blue pens.

your prof probably mentioned it at some point. my philosophy prof wants us to line up the right margin so all the words end in the exact same place, like the left margin. it's weird, but it's a part of our mark. and i agree with the person who said why WRITE 10 pages when you can TYPE? you must have really good handwriting

oh, and if you had been typing it, would you have changed the font color from black to blue? probably not

Erm... that sucks... FYL

Interesting... I'm pretty sure I was taught in high school that blue and black were both acceptable and "professional" colors of ink to write in. I specifically remember we had a graduation requirement paper to write and they told us to "be sure to bring a blue or black ink pen" for it. Unless your professor specifically told you to only use black ink, then I say FYL. If so, you should still talk too a higher authority and see if you can get a real grade.