So I've checked all the formal requirements regarding the thesis in my institution but there is no mention of whether left hand aligned or justified text is better. Any views? Also where do people stand on indenting the first line of a paragraph?

At the moment I'm going with left hand aligned and no indent but I'm not sure if it looks tidy enough.

Think this just personal choice if your institute has no guidelines.

I like to justify with no indent.

Thanks TreeofLife!

Just to be different I left justified mine and indented each paragraph! :) All my colleagues justified theirs and didn't indent the paragraphs. Also, because I had to use some IUPAC names for my compounds I found that justifying a body of text can sometimes leave huge gaps of space between some words which I didn't like. With left justification all spaces are equal. But like tol said it's all down to personal preference in the end!

agree that it's personal preference. That said I think justified both sides looks much tidier. I justify, no indent, double space between paragraphs.

I'm pretty sure I've read some research that says from a readability perspective left-justified is better and easier to read. I'll try to dig out the paper.

I like block justified text cos it looks more tidy to me, BUT I heard that it's hard for people with dyslexia to read because of the variation in word spacing, so now I avoid.

I've only ever indented paragraphs when handwriting. I never bother when typing.