Indenting description lists

Question

Is there a way to chenge how the description lists are indented?

I have something like:

Normal text

List item
List Item

I would like something like:

Normal text

    List item
    List Item

Answer 1

I recommend to use the enumitem package which offers a lot of features for customizing lists - both fine tuning and also consistent list adjustment. For example, just by \setdescription{leftmargin=1cm,labelindent=1cm} you could indent the description list by 1 cm. Raise leftmargin or use any value you like for the arguments. More can be found in the package documentation.

A complete example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{enumitem}
\setdescription{leftmargin=\parindent,labelindent=\parindent}
\begin{document}
\section{Test}
left aligned text
\begin{description}
 \item[One] first item
 \item[Two] second item
 \item[Three] third item
\end{description}
\end{document}

With enumitem, you could even specify it locally, case-by-case, using optional arguments:

\begin{description}[labelindent=1cm]
...

Answer 2

redefine the environment:

\documentclass{article}
\renewenvironment{description}[1][0pt]
  {\list{}{\labelwidth=0pt \leftmargin=#1
   \let\makelabel\descriptionlabel}}
  {\endlist}

\parindent=0pt
\begin{document}
\rule{\linewidth}{1pt}

default text
\begin{description}
 \item[foo] bar
 \item[foobar] bar
 \item[foo] bar
\end{description}

\begin{description}[1cm]
 \item[foo] bar
 \item[foobar] bar
 \item[foo] bar
\end{description}
\end{document}

Answer 3

I like Stefan's answer a lot, but if you'd prefer not to install a new package and are okay with a hacky solution, you could just enclose the description in a quote or quotation environment.