The title of a document is crucial because it is your first chance to define your subject and purpose for your readers, giving them their first clue to whether the document contains the information they need. The title is an implicit promise to readers: “This document is about Subject A, and it was written to achieve Purpose B.” Everything that follows has to relate clearly to the subject and purpose defined in the title; if it doesn’t, either the title is misleading or the document has failed to make good on the title’s promise.

You might want to put off giving a final title to your document until you have completed the document, because you cannot be sure that the subject and purpose you established during the planning stages will not change. However, you should jot down a working title before you start drafting; you can revise it later. To give yourself a strong sense of direction, make sure the working title defines not only the subject of the document but also its purpose. The working title “Snowboarding Injuries” states the subject but not the purpose. “How To Prevent Snowboarding Injuries” is better because it helps keep you focused on your purpose.

An effective title is precise. For example, if you are writing a feasibility study on the subject of offering free cholesterol screening at your company, the title should contain the key terms free cholesterol screening and feasibility. The following title would be effective:

Offering Free Cholesterol Screening at Thrall Associates: A Feasibility Study

If your document is an internal report discussing company business, you might not need to identify the company. In that case, the following would be clear:

Offering Free Cholesterol Screening: A Feasibility Study

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Or you could present the purpose before the subject:

A Feasibility Study of Offering Free Cholesterol Screening

Avoid substituting general terms, such as health screening for cholesterol screening or study for feasibility study; the more precise your terms, the more useful your readers will find the title. An added benefit of using precise terms is that your document can be more accurately and effectively indexed in databases and online libraries, increasing the chances that someone researching your subject will be able to find the document.

You’ll notice that clear, comprehensive titles can be long. If you need eight or ten words to say what you want to say about your subject and purpose, use them.

Headings, which are lower-level titles for the sections and subsections in a document, do more than announce the subject that will be discussed in the document. Collectively, they create a hierarchy of information, dividing the document into major sections and subdividing those sections into subsections. In this way, coherent headings communicate the relative importance and generality of the information that follows, helping readers recognize major sections as primary (likely to contain more-important or more-general information) and subsections as secondary or subordinate (likely to contain less-important or more-specific information).

Clear, informative headings communicate this relationship not only through their content but also through their design. For this reason, make sure that the design of a primary heading (sometimes referred to as a level 1 heading, 1 heading, or A heading) clearly distinguishes it from a subordinate heading (a level 2 heading, 2 heading, or B heading), and that the design of that subordinate heading clearly distinguishes it from yet a lower level of subordinate heading (a level 3 heading, 3 heading, or C heading).

The headings used in this book illustrate this principle, as does the example below. Notice that the example uses both typography and indentation to distinguish one heading from another and to communicate visually how information at one level logically relates to information at other levels.

Level 1 Heading

Level 2 Heading

Level 3 Heading

Effective headings help both reader and writer by forecasting not only the subject and purpose of the discussion that follows but also its scope and organization. When readers encounter the heading “Three Health Benefits of Yoga: Improved Muscle Tone, Enhanced Flexibility, Better Posture,” they can reasonably assume that the discussion will consist of three parts (not two or four) and that it will begin with a discussion of muscle tone, followed by a discussion of flexibility and then posture.

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Because headings introduce text that discusses or otherwise elaborates on the subject defined by the heading, avoid back-to-back headings. In other words, avoid following one heading directly with another heading:

3. Approaches to Neighborhood Policing

3.1 Community Policing

According to the COPS Agency (a component of the U.S. Department of Justice), “Community policing focuses on crime and social disorder.” . . .

What’s wrong with back-to-back headings? First, they’re illogical. If your document contains a level 1 heading, you have to say something at that level before jumping to the discussion at level 2. Second, back-to-back headings distract and confuse readers. The heading “3. Approaches to Neighborhood Policing” announces to readers that you have something to say about neighborhood policing—but you don’t say anything. Instead, another, subordinate heading appears, announcing to readers that you now have something to say about community policing.

To avoid confusing and frustrating readers, separate the headings with text, as in this example:

3. Approaches to Neighborhood Policing

Over the past decade, the scholarly community has concluded that community policing offers significant advantages over the traditional approach based on patrolling in police cars. However, the traditional approach has some distinct strengths. In the following discussion, we define each approach and then explain its advantages and disadvantages. Finally, we profile three departments that have successfully made the transition to community policing while preserving the major strengths of the traditional approach.

3.1 Community Policing

According to the COPS Agency (a component of the U.S. Department of Justice), “Community policing focuses on crime and social disorder.” . . .

The text after the heading “3. Approaches to Neighborhood Policing” is called an advance organizer. It indicates the background, purpose, scope, and organization of the discussion that follows it. Advance organizers give readers an overview of the discussion’s key points before they encounter the details in the discussion itself.