A Quick Guide to APA Headings

Headings in APA Documents

Headings are the labels that identify different sections of a paper or thesis. The APA has some very specific rules about the use and formatting of headings (see Publication Manual of the APA, sections 2.26 and 2.27, pp. 47-49; also, look at the sample pages on pp. 50-67 to see headings in use).

The purpose of headings is to help you organize your material, but more importantly (to the APA) to make the organization of your document clear to the reader; use your headers to show the reader how sections fit together (answer the questions: what is this section about, and is it a new section, or a sub-section of the section before?)

Make sure the text of your heading is brief, but clearly indicates what is to follow.

Note: the similar terms “header” and “headings” have caused occasional confusion. Headings are the section labels in your text. Headers are the strip of space across the top of a page where you will include your page numbers and an abbreviated version of your title (the bottom of the page is called a Footer).

Levels of Headings

The APA defines 5 levels of headings and their formats (these formats are summarized in Table 2.3, p.48 of the APA manual; I strongly suggest that familiarize yourself with this resource):

L1: Centered, Bold, Title Case
L2: Flush Left, Bold, Title Case
L3: Flush Left, Bold, Italics, Title Case
L4: Indented, Bold, Title Case, ending with a period.
L5: Indented, Bold, Italics, Title Case, ending with a period.

For levels 1-3, the following text would begin on the next line. For levels 4 & 5, the text would continue immediately after the heading, on the SAME line.

Please see the next page for examples of the heading formats.

PLEASE NOTE: in most cases, you will not need to go beyond levels 2 or 3. In a larger document like a thesis, sometimes the nature of the project dictates using more divisions, but only do so if it helps the reader.

Sample Headings

Level 1 Heading

An L1 heading sits in the center of the page and must be followed on the next line by either indented regular text, or a flush-left Level 2 heading.

Level 2 Heading

An L2 heading must be followed on the next line by indented regular text, or a flush-left L3 heading.

Level 3 Heading

An L3 heading must be followed on the next line by indented regular text, or an indented L4 heading.

Level 4 Heading. Text that follows an L4 heading would start on the same line after the period. If there is no text, then an indented L5 heading would follow. But that would be extremely rare.

Level 5 Heading. Since this is the lowest level of heading, it would always be followed by regular text starting immediately after the period (and a space of course).

Hierarchy

It is important to note that these levels are hierarchical, not sequential.

Level 1 headings introduce the major sections of your paper: Literature Review, Methodology, Results, Discussion, References, etc.
Level 2 headings introduce the subdivisions of those level 1 sections: the Methodology section might be divided by L2 headings for Participants, Intervention, etc.
Level 3 would be used to subdivide those L2 sections: Participants might be divided into Population, Sampling, Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria.
Over-Use of headings

Headings are intended to be divisions and sub-divisions of a document, not just paragraph labels. APA states that you should not have isolated single sub-headings; that is, if you want to divide an L2 section into multiple sub-sections, you should label each of them with an L3 heading, but do not have just ONE L3 section within an L2 section

Over-Use of headings

Heading before an Introduction

Please note, although the Introduction to your paper/thesis is a major section, APA is emphatic (section 2.27, p. 47) that you never use the L1 heading “Introduction” at the start of a document. It is assumed that the beginning of the document is introductory. Rather, start the paper with the full title of the document, formatted as an L1 heading (yes, this means that the full title will appear directly below the all-capitalized abbreviated title in the running header).

References

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7^th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/00001165-000