How do I redefine the paragraph style midway through the document (and then go back to the default)?

Question

I prefer to build my bibliography manually because I'm finicky about the formatting, and I need each bibliographical entry to have a hanging indent and an empty line after it. I'm doing fine with this code:

\documentclass[12pt]{memoir}
\begin{document}
\par \noindent \hangindent=0.9cm Leyser, Karl J. \textit{Medieval Germany and Its Neighbours, 900--1250}. London, England: The Hambledon Press, 1982.\\
\par \noindent \hangindent=0.9cm Marongiu, Antonio. ``A Model State in the Middle Ages: The Norman and Swabian Kingdom of Sicily.'' \textit{Comparative Studies in Society and History} 6, iii (1964): 307--320.\\
\end{document}

Et cetera, but I'm sure there is a way to save myself all this formatting with one stroke by redefining the paragraph style at the beginning of the chapter.

I tried the titlesec package, but I'm afraid that although I've used it to format my section headings in the past, I don't know enough to make it work in this case.

I'd be very grateful if someone could point me in the right direction, and perhaps tell me how to switch back to the default paragraph style at the end of the bibliography...

Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

Just use the built-in mechanism, that is, list:

\documentclass[12pt]{memoir}

\usepackage{lipsum}

\newenvironment{mybib}
 {\section*{\bibname}
  \list{}{%
    \topsep=0pt
    \partopsep=0pt
    \parsep=0pt
    \leftmargin=0.9cm
    \itemindent=-\leftmargin
    \itemsep=\baselineskip}}
 {\endlist}

\begin{document}

\lipsum[2]

\begin{mybib}

\item Leyser, Karl J. \textit{Medieval Germany and Its Neighbours, 900--1250}. 
London, England: The Hambledon Press, 1982.

\item Marongiu, Antonio. ``A Model State in the Middle Ages: The Norman and 
Swabian Kingdom of Sicily.'' \textit{Comparative Studies in Society and History} 
6, iii (1964): 307--320.

\end{mybib}

\end{document}

Answer 2

natbib is a powerful alternative:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage[authoryear]{natbib}
\setlength{\bibsep}{1\baselineskip}
\setlength{\bibhang}{0.9cm}

\begin{document}
\lipsum[2]

\begin{thebibliography}{}
\bibitem[Leyser(1982)]{ley82} Leyser, Karl J. \textit{Medieval Germany
    and Its Neighbours, 900--1250}.  London, England: The Hambledon
  Press, 1982.
\bibitem[Marongiu(1964)]{mar64} Marongiu, Antonio. ``A Model State in
  the Middle Ages: The Norman and Swabian Kingdom of Sicily.''
  \textit{Comparative Studies in Society and History} 6, iii (1964):
  307--320.
\end{thebibliography}
\end{document}

Answer 3

Use \everypar{} and \parskip:

---

---

\documentclass[12pt]{memoir}
\usepackage{kantlipsum}
\begin{document}
\kant[2]
\section*{References}
{\parindent0pt
\parskip\baselineskip
\everypar{\hangindent.9cm}

Leyser, Karl J. \textit{Medieval Germany and Its Neighbours, 900--1250}.
London, England: The Hambledon Press, 1982.

Marongiu, Antonio. ``A Model State in the Middle Ages: The Norman 
and Swabian Kingdom of Sicily.'' \textit{Comparative Studies in 
Society and History} 6, iii (1964): 307--320.

}    
\end{document}