You are correct. This is the way these things are done: only the<br> paragraphs following the first are indented.<br> I can little hope to better express why we do this than<br> Robert Bringhurst does when he explains in his widely acclaimed<br> “typographer’s bible”, [*The Elements of Typographic Style*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Style): > ### 2.3 Blocks and Paragraphs > 2.3.1 *Set opening paragraphs flush left.* > The function of a paragraph indent is to mark a pause, setting<br> the paragraph apart from what precedes it. If a paragraph is<br> preceded by a title or subhead, the indent is superfluous and<br> can therefore be omitted, as it is here. > 2.3.2 *In continuous text, mark all paragraphs after the first<br> with an indent of at least one en.* > Typography like other arts, from cooking to choreography, in-<br> volves a balance between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the<br> dependably consistent and the unforeseen. Typographers gen-<br> erally take pleasure in the unpredictable length of the paragraph<br> while accepting the simple and reassuring consistency of the<br> paragraph indent. The prose paragraph and its verse counter-<br> part, the stanza, are basic units of linguistic thought and literary<br> style. The typographer must articulate them enough to make<br> them clear, yet not so strongly the the form instead of the con-<br> tent steals the show. If the units of thought, or the boundaries<br> between thoughts, look more important than the thoughts<br> themselves, the typographer has failed.