Flushleft bibliography APA style

Question

I need all the line in bibliography to be flush left. Following is the code

\documentclass[12pt,oneside]{report}

\usepackage{ragged2e}
\usepackage{apacite}
\usepackage{breakcites}
\usepackage[byname]{smartref}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

\begin{document}

\cite{Gourvenec2003}
\cite{gourvenec2004}
\cite{gourvenec2008}
\cite{Gourvenec2011}

\bibliographystyle{apacite} 

\begin{FlushLeft}   
\bibliography{bib}{}
\end{FlushLeft}

\end{document}

My bib file contains

@article{Gourvenec2003,
  doi = {10.1680/geot.2003.53.6.575},
  year  = {2003},
  month = {Jan},
  publisher = {Thomas Telford Ltd.},
  volume = {53},
  number = {6},
  pages = {575--586},
  author = {S. Gourvenec and M. Randolph},
  title = {Effect of strength non-homogeneity on the shape of failure envelopes for combined loading of strip and circular foundations on clay},
  journal = {G{\'{e}}otechnique}
}



@article{gourvenec2008,
  doi = {10.1680/geot.2008.58.3.177},
  year  = {2008},
  month = {Jan},
  publisher = {Thomas Telford Ltd.},
  volume = {58},
  number = {3},
  pages = {177--185},
  author = {S. Gourvenec},
  title = {Effect of embedment on the undrained capacity of shallow foundations under general loading},
  journal = {G{\'{e}}otechnique}
}

@inproceedings{gourvenec2004,
  title={Bearing capacity under combined loading--a study of the effect of shear strength heterogeneity},
  author={Gourvenec, Susan},
  booktitle={Proceedings of 9th Australia New Zealand Conference on Geomechanics, Auckland,New Zealand},
  pages={527--533},
    date = {8--11},
    month = {Feb},
  year={2004}
}

@article{Gourvenec2011,
  doi = {10.1680/geolett.11.00026},
  year  = {2011},
  month = {Oct},
  publisher = {Thomas Telford Ltd.},
  volume = {1},
  number = {October-December},
  pages = {101--108},
  author = {Gourvenec, Susan and Mana, D. S. K},
  title = {Undrained vertical bearing capacity factors for shallow foundations},
  journal = {G{\'{e}}otechnique Letters}
}

And the output looks like:

The second and further lines after each references are not flush left. How can I do this? I have not specifically read the APA guidelines about this but making it flush left looks more aesthetic.

Answer 1

This is the standard way APA style bibliographies are formatted, since it makes the entries easier to distinguish from one another. But the margin in apacite is controlled by the length \bibleftmargin (see p.35 of the documentation). You need to change both the left margin and the \bibindent:

\setlength{\bibleftmargin}{0pt}
\setlenght{\bibindent}{0pt}

will make the entries flush left.

Answer 2

The answer to the question is

\bibliographystyle{apacite} 
\begin{FlushLeft}
\setlength{\bibindent}{0pt}
\bibliography{bib}{}
\end{FlushLeft}

If I use \setlength{\bibleftmargin}{0pt} then the left margin on first line of each of the references is made zero and it looks like

When I use the bibindent command, then it gets justified. However, as written earlier, the clarity is lost and it, indeed, does not look aesthetic. So I am sticking to the original suggested style in APA. @Alan Munn I am upvoting your answer since you told me that is the way originally APA bibliography is written.