Paragraph Indenting Rules
I have a question about dialogue indents. I'm proofreading a piece for my proofreading course and I've come across something that's stumped me.
The first 6 lines of the story are dialogue and they are all unindented. The prose doesn't start until line 7 and that's unindented too.
Now, do I indent them all or just the first line? And what about the prose on line 7? Do I indent that too or leave it unindented?
I'm using Oxford's Hart's Rules for guidance but it doesn't say much about this. Any help would be appreciated.
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According to Hart's Rules, Section 3.2 Paragraphs has the relevant info:
New paragraphs following headings should be ranged full left. New paragraphs not
following a heading should be indented one tab.
Leave the first line of the story alone, but the dialogue and the paragraphs following should each have a single tab indentation for the first line. The following lines should be ranged full left (to use Hart's nomenclature).
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