The Academic CV template

Hanging indents, and why they matter

A publication list set as ordinary paragraphs is hard to scan: every line starts at the same place, so your eye cannot find where one citation ends and the next begins. With a hanging indent the first line starts at the margin and continuations tuck in, so each entry reads as a unit.

That is the whole design decision here, and it is why this template exists separately from Harvard Style.

Sections to add

Use the editor's section controls — the default set is not enough for a real CV. Reordering is drag-and-drop.

• Publications — reverse-chronological, one citation style throughout, your own name bolded. Split peer-reviewed articles, chapters and preprints if there are enough of each to warrant it.
• Conferences — talks and posters separately. Mark invited talks explicitly.
• Funding — grant title, funder, amount, your role, dates. Include the amounts.
• Teaching — course, level, your role, enrolment.
• Supervision — students, level, completion year.
• Service — reviewing, committee work, editorial roles.
• Custom section — for anything discipline-specific: fieldwork, languages, archival access, software released, datasets published.

Citation formatting

Pick your field's style — APA, Chicago, Vancouver, MLA — and hold it to the punctuation. Inconsistent citations are the fastest way to look careless to an academic reader, and it is the thing a committee notices without trying.

Bold your own name. In a nine-author paper this is the difference between a reader finding your contribution and giving up.

Number long lists. A committee member saying "publication 14" is a good sign, and impossible without numbers.

Do not inflate. Listing a paper as "in press" when it is under review, or padding with "manuscript in preparation", is checkable and it is the kind of thing that ends an application.

Length

There is no page limit on an academic CV, and trying to force one onto a real record looks like you have less than you do. Two to four pages early on; ten or more is normal for an established researcher.

That is not licence to pad. Every line still has to be information. "Attended the 2023 conference" is not a line.

When you need a resume instead

If you are applying to industry — a data science role, a research position in a company, consulting — send a two-page resume, not this. Industry recruiters do get put off by a long CV for a role with a page limit, and it reads as not having understood the audience.

Graduate or Professional are the right shapes for that, and your content carries across when you switch.

There is more on the distinction in the academic collection overview.