Formatting headings

Headings on the same level of organization should be aligned and styled in a consistent way.

If you have more than one level of heading, you might make your first-level headings bold and the second-level headings unbolded and italicized, like this:

First-level heading

Second-level heading

To make sure that your readers notice the differences between headings, you can do the following:

• Change an aspect of the typeface (bold, italic, capitalization).
• Increase the size of the font of the more important heading. In general, change a font size by two points if you want readers to notice the difference.
• Add space above and below the headings. Keep the heading closer to the following text than to the preceding text.

Run-in heading: A run-in heading in bold (as in this paragraph) is an effective way to announce the topic of a paragraph.

Sample report with run-in headings

Paper with two levels of headings (APA style)

Caution:It is not a good idea to underline headings, especially if the document will appear on the Web. Underlining suggests hyperlinks.

Related topic:

Phrasing headings