A hanging indent, in four clicks.

What it looks like

Set it with the paragraph settings, never with tabs, spaces or line breaks: those fall apart the moment a line wraps differently. Select every entry and set it once.

Google Docs

1. Select the entries.
2. Open Format, then Align & indent, then Indentation options.
3. Under Special indent, choose Hanging, and type 0.5 (inches).
4. Click Apply.

With the ruler showing (View, Show ruler), you can also drag the small blue rectangle (first line indent) to 0 and the blue triangle (left indent) to 0.5. The Docs app on phones and tablets has no hanging indent setting; set it on the web.

Microsoft Word

1. Select the entries.
2. On the Home tab, click the small arrow at the bottom right of the Paragraph group to open the Paragraph settings.
3. On Indents and Spacing, under Special, choose Hanging, and set By to 0.5".
4. Click OK.

On a Mac, choose Format, then Paragraph, for the same settings. Word on the web has the same Paragraph settings under the Home tab’s Paragraph options. The shortcut Ctrl+T (Command+T on a Mac) adds a hanging indent at the next tab stop.

Apple Pages

1. Select the entries.
2. In the Format sidebar (the paintbrush), open the Layout tab.
3. Under Indents, set Left to 0.5 in and First to 0 in.
4. Check the page: the first line of each entry should start at the margin and the rest should be indented. If it is reversed, swap the two values.

You can also drag the indent markers on the ruler (View, Show Ruler): the first-line marker to the margin, the left indent marker to half an inch.

Which styles use it

• MLA: every Works Cited entry, double-spaced.
• APA: every References entry, double-spaced.
• Chicago: every bibliography entry. Footnotes use a normal first-line indent instead.
• IEEE: no hanging indent; the bracketed numbers sit in a column on the left.

Questions