Hi Michelle,

It sounds like you have "hanging indents."

Under the View tab, turn on display of Rulers.

Click in one of the paragraphs and then right-click and choose Paragraph. You should be able to see the indent settings that are reflected on the horizontal ruler. Do not change these here.

Instead close that dialog and press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+S to view the Styles Pane and see what Style you are using. Right-click on that and choose modify. Then in the bottom left of the dialog is a Format button, click on that and choose Paragraph. You should be back at the same spot as before, except through the style modification dialog.

Get rid of the hanging indent in that dialog. Click OK to go back to the Style Modification dialog. There check the box for all documents based on this template. Then click on OK. If your paragraphs look the way you want, close Word. If asked if you want to save changes to the template, answer Yes.

Understanding Styles in Microsoft Word
Basic Formatting in Microsoft Word