Best Font for Dissertation Writing | Serif & San-Serif
Dissertations are the lengthiest form of academic writing, and the readability of these academic documents has to be top-notch. The choice of typefaces and...
Dissertations are the lengthiest form of academic writing, and the readability of these academic documents has to be top-notch. The choice of typefaces and fonts plays a crucial role in making the text readable and legible. Generally, Times New Roman is considered the best font for dissertation writing. However, because it is the most used typeface, students try to be unique in their typeface choices.
If your instructor hasn’t provided you with font instructions, exploring many great alternatives is a good idea. Choosing a perfect font for a dissertation can be complicated, and you rarely see any consensus on a typeface. Based on different qualities and student choices, The Academic Papers UK has compiled some Serif and Sans-Serif typeface options for you to choose from.
What Makes a Font Ideal for Academics?
Readability, legibility, ease of reading, and professional looks make a font a preferred choice for dissertation writing.
Let’s explore why these qualities matter while making a choice in different typefaces:
Readability
The readability of a font includes factors like the purpose or context of the text, spacing within letters, open letters and mirroring. Readable letters make the reading experience better. Dissertations are considerably lengthier assignments, and examiners will skim through them, so making efforts to keep their reading experience smoother is worth it.
Choose the Right Font for Your Dissertation!
Improve readability and presentation by selecting a professional font.
Legibility
A standard font you can read, view, and understand easily and has considerable height and weight would be considered legible while writing a dissertation. In short, fonts where readers can easily distinguish one character from another. Too narrow fonts can cause difficulty in reading the text. While a well-spaced font is considered legible, it should not be too broad either.
Professional Looks
Fonts with a nice visual effect look good even if you see them for a longer time. Typefaces with a classic design, like serif fonts or exhibiting simplicity, look more professional. These typefaces usually have consistent weight, are easier to read, have a polished appearance, and give official documents vibes.
Best Font to Use in a Dissertation
A standard font for writing a dissertation is that the examiner doesn’t get bored or get rid of a headache. Imagine yourself reading 60,000-80,000 words with a boring and difficult-to-read font and vibe. Typefaces are the topic we see a lot of disagreement on and can’t find a consensus on. To give you a way out, we decided to provide you with students’ favourite and examiners liked fonts, which ideally can be a good fit for dissertations.
Serif Fonts
Serif typefaces usually have small strokes or extensions at the end of their prolonged strokes. These fonts have ancient roots and were widely used at the start of publications. In other words, they are considered specialised for long-form content.
1. Times New Roman
The serif typeface, mostly used for 18th—and 19th-century publications, became a standard for long-form and academic texts. Countless Universities and instructors ask students to use TNR (Times New Roman) font. Due to its high readability and professional style, it’s considered the best font for writing a dissertation.
If you are confused about the typeface preference, Times New Roman is the safest and most obvious choice. Plus, students who are struggling with deadlines and have limited time should definitely choose this font and focus on writing their dissertations. They should select TNR without worrying about the instructors or anything else.
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Georgia typeface has the potential to be the perfect font for dissertations and the top alternative for TNR. It’s also a serif font with a traditional look and feels confident and elegant. This font can be best suited for headings, bibliographies, or body text. Although the Georgia font was designed for clarity on computer screens, it gives greater sharpness in print.
Georgia is certainly readable and spacious enough to help your examiner skim it through. This typeface provides tall lowercase letters (large x-heights). Its thin strokes give the text good visibility on display and sharpness in print. It’s a good choice if you want an equally effective alternative to TNR.
3. XCharter
XCharter is another old-style serif font in the serif typeface family. It was created to enhance the legibility of text in print. XCharter is in Roman style, has small extensions, good spacing, and is more readable.
Compared to Georgia fonts, Xcharter has fewer curves and much straighter lines. It looks very elegant and open when contrast is reduced. XCharter can be a preferred choice for those who prefer both slanted and italic text in their dissertations.
4. Crimson Pro
If you are looking for a contemporary, clear, and classic font, Crimson Pro should be your choice. Available at Google Fonts, the Crimson Pro is widely used for book publication but also recommended for dissertation writing by the students who used it and their professors liked it.
Crimson Pro has all the weights and styles, like italics and bold. It has Latin characters and many other European and Eastern languages. Just like Garamond, Crimson Pro is known for its readability and old style.
5. Cambria
Like Times New Roman, Georgia, and Calibri, Cambria is also a suitable, readable, and legitimate font and is highly recommended for use for dissertation writing. Cambria is a default typeface of Microsoft Word with 12 pt.
Cambria looks good on both screen and printed documents. It can be a more preferred font for body text than Times New Roman.
6. TeX Gyre Termes
A good Times New Roman alternative, available in bold, italic, and regular typecases, TeX Gyre Termes is good for body text. This can be an ideal academic font as it provides both readability and legibility. But not only that, it gives the typical old-style look of serif fonts.
7. Baskerville
The font of true beauty, Baskerville, is another old-style and traditional font. Just like Times New Roman, Baskerville is also widely used in academics, especially for dissertations. It looks elegant on both screen and print. It has everything you might look for, like weight, tall X-heights, legibility, and readability.
Baskerville is easy on the eyes and doesn’t give headaches. An experiment by the NY Times suggests that Baskerville attracts readers more and impacts their views about the information provided. People think the information provided in this font is “true.”
8. Gentium
Awarded by the certificate of excellence in type design by ATypI in 2003. With good case variants and styles, Gentium is perfect fit for academic requirements for long form content. It mixes diacritics and stylistics of vietnam and serbia respectively which makes it fonts for nations.
Students think it is a good looking typeface due to its openface qualities. Although students have some concerns over its connections with a religious organisation, it is still widely used as an appropriate font for dissertations.
9. Brill Fonts
Brill fonts sophisticatedly display all sorts of typefaces in a sequence. They have a recognisable look and feel and are compatible with multiple languages. Brill improves the readability and legality of the text, making it a perfect choice for students to use in dissertation writing.
Brill Fonts has a very adaptable design. It’s shape, spacing, and positioning of the characters give it an aesthatically pleasing look. Brill fonts are more robust and available for free download for non-commercial purposes.
10. Garamond or Caslon
Garamond is a classic font and gives an exceptionally beautiful look when randored at a large size. It looks very elegant, classic and classy in body text especially in long form content like dissertations. Font size of about 11.5 to 12.75 pt is recommended.
On the other hand, Caslonis most readable among the roman fonts and one can read it for hours, continuously. When you find yourself in doubt, Caslon can be a safe choice.
11. Century Schoolbook
Century Schoolbook has an open appearance and large X-heights and is a largely popular book and magazine. Despite being a serif font, it's not a typical old-style typeface; instead it has a more modern touch to it. It has a bare minimum difference in light and bold strokes. The Century Schoolbook is more of the Scotch genre and has British origin.
Its strokes have finely pointed tampers, making it more crisp. This typeface can be best for dissertation writing, as it is widely used in literature and textbooks. It has a curled ending for certain letters in small cases and upper cases.
Sans-Serif Fonts
Sans-serif Fonts are cleaner, more formal, and more straightforward on screen. The absence of serifs makes them more legible and traditional. If your audience includes less advanced readers, sans-serif fonts can be helpful for character recognition.
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1. IBM Plex Sans
Developed for corporate, IBM Plex Sans has remarkable legibility in web and print. It may have both serif and sans characters and can be used for multiple purposes. IBM Plex Sans has become a preferred choice for students looking for a more formal voice when writing a dissertation. Also, it’s a clean typeface with excellent clarity.
2. Noto Sans
Noto Sans is another clean and readable font which supports 1000+ languages and 150+ writing systems. This typeface offers various styles and variable OpenType typefaces. If it has enough space, it looks good on both screens and print.
3. Verdana
Verdana is readable at all font sizes, even at eight and large x-heights. It is a humanist font that creates clear and legible text. Ideally, it was designed for screen reading at low resolution, but its usage in academics doesn’t hurt; instead, it enhances the readability.
4. Calibri
Calibri is a plain, easy-to-read, and Stylish font. Using a recommended font size of 12pt can give a formal and clean look. You should avoid using it for body text, although you can use it in bibliographies and headings. Claibri has a larger character set and supports more languages than TNR.
5. Helvetica
Helvetica can be a safe choice if you want to go with sans font types. It improves the readability of the text and gives a better look to the overall text with headings and subheadings. Helvetica can also be beneficial for scientific topics and, of course, figures and citations.
6. Arial
Like Times New Roman, Arial fonts, along with Calibri, are widely recommended by universities for writing dissertations. As we mentioned earlier, there is no consensus on using serif or sans serif fonts for long-form content; the opposite opinion prefers Arial for a clear image.
Because Arial fonts are widely used on the web and in academics, they are more familiar to your audience or examiners, which can increase their readability as well.
Final Words
Selecting the best font for a dissertation seems like an irrelevant matter, but the wrong font can certainly ruin your thesis. If you are already short on time but your university hasn’t suggested any font guidelines, you should go with the safe choice. Times New Roman for body text and some Sans-serif font for headings can be a better choice.
In this article, we have provided a list of some fonts that could be ideal for readability, legibility, and clarity. Fonts from both serif and Sans-serif typefaces can be utilised strategically, mixing them up for different purposes like citations and bibliography. But make sure not to mix more than two typefaces.
We hope this guide will make font selection easier for you and allow you to move to a more practical stage of writing your dissertation.
