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I am trying to write a paper in LaTeX. I am able to indent most of the paragraphs by using \\ at the end of the previous paragraph and adding a blank line in between the paragraphs like so. 

This is the last sentence of the previous paragraph.  \\

This is the first sentence of the next paragraph.

However, I am unable to indent the first paragraph of my paper or any of the first paragraphs in any of my sections. Any advice is welcome.

Werner
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Mathematician
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    \usepackage{indentfirst} and please don't use \\ followed by a blank line; see http://tex.stackexchange.com/q/51722/3954. – Gonzalo Medina Apr 25 '14 at 02:51
  • What is wrong with \\ followed by a blank line? – Mathematician Apr 25 '14 at 02:52
  • Did you see the answer to the question I lined? Using \ followed by a blank line produces underfull \hboxes. – Gonzalo Medina Apr 25 '14 at 02:53
  • @Werner, you have been most helpful. – Mathematician Apr 25 '14 at 03:04
  • @gonzaloMedina, I do not understand your comment. – Mathematician Apr 25 '14 at 03:12
  • If you are referring to my last comment, the explanation is in the answer I gave to the question I linked in my first comment. – Gonzalo Medina Apr 25 '14 at 03:13
  • Yes, I looked at the link. I understand that LaTeX doesn't like it. But, I still do not understand what is wrong with \\ followed by a blank line? Why should I not use it? – Mathematician Apr 25 '14 at 03:17
  • Is the question: 'why doesn't LaTeX like underfull hboxes?', 'why should I care about LaTeX's preferences?', 'what is so bad about underfull hboxes?' or 'why does it cause underful hboxes, terrible as they are?' – cfr Apr 25 '14 at 03:20
  • Besides producing the warnings (which means that you are using something in the wrong way, even if your document compiles and produces an output), the main reason for not leaving additional separation between paragraphs (no matter whether it's done in the right or in the wrong way) is not a good typographical practice. – Gonzalo Medina Apr 25 '14 at 03:21
  • @GonzaloMedina I never (rarely) compile a document without warnings. I realise that means I am doing something technically wrong but I'm still curious as to whether the warnings indicate sub-optimal output or only sub-optimal means to that output! My current document gives me 4 warnings and 5 bad boxes. Some of the warnings will disappear but others won't and the bad boxes probably won't. The code is a mess but the output looks OK... – cfr Apr 25 '14 at 03:25
  • @cfr Regarding warnings, sometimes they are unavoidable; in my opinion, what is important is that you pay attention to all of them and that you are sure what is causing them and whether they can be safely ignored or not. – Gonzalo Medina Apr 25 '14 at 03:31
  • @GonzaloMedina Oh. Yes, I do that. My .bib files sometimes contain things for one style which another style doesn't recognise or which I keep in case I need to revert to bibtex. Those I pretty much always end up ignoring and they don't seem to hurt anything. – cfr Apr 25 '14 at 03:36
  • @Mathematician In your concrete case, based on your question, you are indenting every paragraph and also adding between paragraphs. This is redundant. I'd suggest you to either use indentation and normal separation between paragraphs (the default behaviour) or extra separation between paragraphs with no indentation. Again, this is just a suggestion based on typographical conventions; it's up to you to decide whether to follow them or to break them; you are, of course, the owner of your documents :) – Gonzalo Medina Apr 25 '14 at 03:42
  • @Mathematician I just added to my answer here http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/51723/3954 a concrete example showing that using \\\par can have real undesired effects in a document. – Gonzalo Medina Apr 28 '14 at 03:59

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