Hanging Indentation

Introduction

A number of citation styles require the use of hanging indentation for citing sources at the end of a research paper or book. Here’s the quick explanation of how to add hanging indentation in MS Word.

What It Looks Like

Hanging indentation means that for every entry in your final bibliography, you indent each line after the first one tab space. Here’s an example of an MLA Works Cited Page with hanging indentation:

Now, you can of course just press Tab for every entry, but that’s laborious and MS Word will likely mess up your spacing if you go that route. There’s a much quicker way to achieve hanging indentation …

How To Add Hanging Indentation

Adding hanging indentation in MS Word is super easy. Just highlight your text and press Ctrl + T. That’s it!

Alternatively, you can take a more circuitous route and go to Home > Paragraph (click the little symbol to the right) > Special > Hanging Indentation.

If you take the latter route, you will be able to adjust the spacing options at the same time. For more details, check out the video above.