I cannot decide whether to use double or 1.5 spacing. On the one hand, 1.5 looks quite good, but on the other, double allows enough space for examiners to write comments.

I know some in-house styles specify double spacing, but this seems to have fallen out of favour with some other universities.

Which spacing do you prefer? (or your supervisor prefers).

I don't have a choice in this matter: my university specifies double-spacing in the regulations. But for day-to-day editing I prefer single-spacing because it gives me a better overview of the chapters and their content.

I prefer 1.5 if I am printing anything out to read. Anything I submit must be in double spacing though, I don't have the option. I think go for the 1.5 if you have the choice, it just looks better. You could compromise a bit and use wide margins for comments?

We have the choice of 1.5 or double spacing, but I prefer 1.5 - there's enough room for comments, and double looks too spaced out for 12pt text to me. Our margins are very specific though, 4cm for the left hand one, so that gives extra room for comments too.

Its Double spacing- as far as I know that's the standard way. I use single spacing sometimes to get an overview of the chapters I'm writing so at the very end I just do double spacing before printing or sending for comments

Its Double spacing- as far as I know that's the standard way. I use single spacing sometimes to get an overview of the chapters I'm writing so at the very end I just do double spacing before printing or sending for comments

Thanks for the replies, guys!

Hmm, now I'm more undecided! lol.

Ruby, I have the same very generous margin as you...4cm on the left. I may stick with 1.5, but also put a generous margin of say 3cm on the right.

My main goal is to not annoy the examiners.

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If you can't decide, you could always resort to scrutinising the official regs for your uni, then make an aesthetic judgement based within those parameters.

I know what you mean about not wanting to annoy the examiners though! We're allowed to use 11pt fonts, but I was worried it might irritate anyone with bad eyesight and the main text almost merged with the footnotes in someone else's draft as it was almost the same size. Also, my sup said that the glued spine binding is really annoying when you're trying to read a thesis as it keeps springing open and can't lay flat on the table. That's why I went for the plastic ring spine thing for my draft, and will do the same for my submission, if it's too thick for the wire ring spine which I actually prefer.

I know it's not the same thing exactly, but I got really fed up with a student whose whole dissertation was printed on really slippery paper and was loose, not even stapled together. It was SO annoying to mark, it just kept slithering out of my hands!!! And she used a 'quirky' novelty font that wasn't very easy to read. And when you've got 35 to mark....