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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/46033
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/46033
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I'm writing a formal document for my company where it'll be shared and used by a number of teams. Unfortunately, we don't have any official standard style guide to follow, so I've attempted to be as internally-consistent as possible.

For indentation, I opted to go for paragraph indenting as the majority of my paragraphs are 4-6 lines long and some sections of my document have several such paragraphs in sequence. While I might ultimately revisit this decision, I'm still wondering about the indentation rules for bulleted lists as I frequently encounter this situation.

In many situations I've needed to introduce a bulleted list with a 1-2 sentence paragraph leading to the list. What indentation should that introductory paragraph have relative to the other paragraphs and to the bulleted items in the list?

If my paragraphs weren't intended, the rules seem straightforward as no indentation is necessary.

> Sentence leading up to the list:
> 
> - Item 1
> 
> - Item 2

But with indented paragraphs, the rules are less clear. If I indent my list-introduction paragraph as a regular paragraph, I end up with a lot of whitespace on the left. If I don't indent it, I end up with inconsistent indentation.

Here's an example from Word:

> [![Screenshot showing an indented one-line introduction to a bulleted list that is then further indented](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cN9WO.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cN9WO.png)

To me, this looks like a bit of a mess, but I'm unsure how to address it. Note that the introductory paragraph and the bulleted list have a separate focus, so I feel the paragraph break is appropriate.

What are the proper indentation rules around bulleted lists?

Original score: 3