Saving time with indents

In APA formatting, paragraphs should use first line indentation and the reference list should use a hanging indent.

First line indentation means the first line starts further in that the rest of the paragraph.

Hanging indents are the opposite- the first line is left aligned and the following lines start further in.

When adding indents, many seem to rely on the tab key or space bar which leaves a lot of room for error and can also be really time-consuming. The good new is there is a much easier way to do it!

In MS Word, highlight the text, right click, select “paragraph” and then under the “indentation” section select “first line” for the paragraphs or “hanging” for the reference list.