APA Heading Levels

Headings clarify your logic and organization for the reader by establishing a hierarchy of sections in the paper. The most important thing to keep in mind is that "all topics of equal importance have the same level of heading throughout a manuscript" (APA, 2010, p. 62).


Note that in below, title case means only the first letters of words with four or more letters are capitalized, while all other letters are left lower case. Sentence case means that only the first word of a title is capitalized, while all other letters are left lower case.


Here is the formatting for all APA heading levels:

______________________________________________________________

Title [centered, not bolded, title case—also used for References title]
 

Introductory paragraph(s) go here.

Level 1 [Centered, Bolded, Title Case]
 

First paragraph(s) of section go here

Level 2 [Left-Aligned, Bolded, Title Case]
          Paragraphs of section go here. 


          Level 3 [Tabbed .5 inches, bolded, sentence case, period]. Note that the first sentence of the paragraph in this section begins on the same line.

 

           Level 4 [Tabbed .5 inches, bolded, italicized, sentence case, period]. Note that the first sentence of the paragraph in this section begins on the same line.
 

______________________________________________________________

More examples of heading formatting in a paper can be found in the Writing a Paper With Four Heading Levels download. Additionally, all of the templates are formatted with correct APA headings.
 

Example of Basic APA Heading Formatting

If you were writing about the genres of TV shows currently on the air, this could be an informal outline:

I. Reality Television
    a. Competitions
    b. Lifestyle

II. Scripted Dramas
    a. Medical settings
    b. Crime investigation


For this paper, we have two levels of headings: main TV genre and TV subgenre. Because APA (p. 62) notes that papers with two levels will use the first two heading formats, your paper might look like this:

_____________________________________________________

Title of the Paper

                Introductory paragraph(s) go here.

Reality Television [Level 1 Heading]

                First paragraph(s) about reality television in general go here.

Competitions [Level 2 Heading]

                Paragraphs for this section discussing reality television shows that are competitions go here.

Lifestyle Shows [Level 2 Heading]

                Paragraphs for this section discussing reality television shows that are lifestyle shows go here.

Scripted Dramas [Level 1 Heading]

                Introductory paragraph(s) go here.

Medical Settings [Level 2 Heading]

                Paragraphs for this section discussing scripted dramas that are in a medical setting go here.

Crime Investigations [Level 2 Heading]

                Paragraphs for this section discussing scripted dramas that are based on crime investigations go here.

_____________________________________________________

Tips

Take care to follow the proper edition of the APA manual as the headings between the fifth and sixth edition are different.

The running head and header are a bit tricky to format per APA sixth edition requirements. We put together a short tutorial that will walk you through it:

You can also review running head format guidelines here.