How to Use APA Headings Correctly: An Extended Student Guide

Written documents and papers rely on headings and subheadings to guide readers to their contents.

Without these, readers simply won’t know what’s written where.

So, as a student, you need to make sure your assignment is divided into sections using adequate headings and subheadings according to your style guide—APA, MLA, or CMoS.

If you’re following the APA style guide, this article will guide you on how to format headings according to the style guide by explaining the APA heading levels, formatting rules, and best practices for students.

Understanding APA Heading Levels

The APA (American Psychological Association) style guide has five different heading levels to structure your content clearly.

The ability to format content up to five different levels allows you to structure your content on a deeper level, making complex papers easier to navigate.

In most cases, you can stick to up to three or four levels of headings, five if the paper gets complex, needing further segregation.

Following are the five headings levels in APA style guide:

• Level 1 (main heading): Only the level 1 heading in APA style is center-aligned: the rest are either left-aligned or indented. Additionally, Level 1 heading, like the rest, is written in bold with title case, which basically means that all important words are capitalized, including nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and pronouns, and words with four or more letters.

• Level 2 (subheadings of level 1): Level 2 heading is left-aligned and written in bold, using title case.

• Level 3 (subheadings of level 2): Level 3 heading follows the same formatting as the level 2 heading, except that it is italicized in addition to being left-aligned and bold while using title case.

• Level 4 (subheadings of level 3): APA’s level four headings are indented and bold using title case, ending with periods (.). Additionally, these subheadings begin on the same line as the paragraph text.

• Level 5 (subheadings of level 4): Level five headings are the same as the level four headings, except that they’re italicized. These are indented, bold, use title case, end with periods, and begin on the same line as the paragraph text.

Remember that APA headings, regardless of their level, all share the following formatting: they’re bold, use title case, and are double-spaced. Additionally, you should keep the formatting consistent throughout your paper by using the same font for your paragraph text as the headings.

Things to Avoid in APA Headings

Following are a few things to avoid you should keep in mind when formatting APA headings:

• Don’t overuse headings: If a part of your assignment can be merged with an existing heading, don’t make a separate heading for it. Adding too many headings can make even a simple assignment look unnecessarily complicated, which defeats the purpose of headings. The flip side is also true; combining two different sections of an assignment that are better written under separate headings can complicate reading and navigating. So, keep a balanced approach.

• Avoid creating a single subheading: Avoid creating a standalone subheading under a heading with no further subheadings. Only create at least two subheadings or avoid doing so altogether. For example, if there’s only one level-3 subheading under a level-2 heading, it’s better to avoid the level 3 subheading altogether and continue writing the text under the level 2 heading, unless there’s another level 3 subheading.

• Avoid labelling headings: In most cases, you shouldn’t label your headings/subheadings with numbers or symbols. However, this is acceptable in cases when an assignment is lengthy and has a complicated structure, or when instructed by your professor.

• Avoid extra line breaks: Adding extra line breaks (by pressing “Enter”) can make your assignment look clunky. In APA style guide, you should avoid doing this both before and after a heading/subheading.

• Avoid varying the font size: In most cases, headings have different font sizes to distinguish different levels of headings. However, the APA style guide distinguishes between different headings based on their formatting, including the use of italics, alignment, and indentation. As for font sizes, the style guide recommends a consistent font size throughout the document—both for headings and paragraphs. Some standard sizes include: Times New Roman (12 pt), Arial (11 pt), Calibri (11 pt), or Georgia (11 pt), where “pt” means point.

• Avoid skipping levels: It’s essential to follow a logical flow when it comes to heading levels. Your heading levels should always move only one step ahead from the current level before moving further on to the next level. For example, suppose your current heading level is 1. Your next subheading should use the heading level 2 formatting before you can use the level 3. Jumping from level 1 to level 3 directly (and skipping level 2) would break the logical flow. However, you can break this logical flow when moving from one topic to another, ascending from a lower heading level to a higher one (let’s say from level 4 to level 2, where level 2 introduces another topic.).

• Avoid “Introduction” heading: You don’t need to label the introduction of your paper with an “Introduction” heading, as the starting paragraphs of a paper are always considered to be the introductory paragraphs. Instead, just start your assignment with the title label, which is the level 1 heading format in APA. Furthermore, the title label appears only once, and so does the level 1 heading. All subsequent labels use the level 2 heading format or lower.

Sections Vs. Headings

In addition to headings, the APA style guide uses a special kind of labelling (i.e., a kind of headings) called section labels for some specific sections of papers, including the author note section, abstract section, paper title, reference page, footnotes, and appendices.

The guide has special guidelines for formatting section labels. These are always written in bold, are center-aligned, and are placed atop a new page.

Applying APA-Style Headings

When working on APA-style headings, the number one most important thing is to follow the guide’s formatting rules, keeping the level hierarchy in mind, whether your paper includes a single heading or multiple.

For research work utilizing APA style, meticulously adhering to heading level hierarchy and creating only necessary headings ensures clarity and organization, mirroring the structured approach required for robust research.

You can create a rough draft of your assignment to get started and plan out the headings in advance. 

This will help avoid confusion and make the rest of the job easy. Next, you can focus on writing and formatting your headings before writing the text.

As mentioned, only create as many headings/subheadings as needed, plus an “Introduction” heading in the beginning is also unneeded.

Your assignment needs to have only as many headings as needed for the topic, neither more nor less, to be good.

Using these guidelines, you can easily work on APA-style assignments and ensure proper headings.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the APA style guide has certain formatting guidelines for writing headings and subheadings.

Instead of the font size, the style guide relies on formatting options, such as italics, alignment, and indentation.

If you’re working on an APA-style assignment, this guide can help you ensure proper formatting throughout the paper.