APA headings and subheadings

A paper is usually divided into chapters and subsections. Each chapter or section has its own heading, and these headings provide structure to a document. As well as many other APA format requirements, there are specific guidelines for formatting headings to ensure that all papers are uniform and easy to read.

APA heading formatting

The APA formatting guidelines for each heading style are outlined in the table below. APA recommends using 12pt. Times New Roman font for both the body text as the headings.

* Capitalize the first word of the title and all major words (including words that have four or more letters). Example: The Effects of Autism on Listening Skills.
** Capitalize the first word of the title and proper nouns (just as you would capitalize a sentence). An example: Teenagers with autism in the United States.

APA headings example

The example shows the different heading levels according to APA style. Hover over the different headings to see the specific APA formatting guidelines. You can also download the APA heading Template to add the correctly formatted APA heading styles to Word.

Download APA Headings Template

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Using heading levels

Using the right heading levels not only helps readers navigate your paper, but also enables you to automatically generate a table of contents in Word.

Use as many heading levels as you need. Some papers only have three heading levels, whereas others use all five. It’s also possible for one section (e.g. “methods”) to have more subheadings than other sections. When writing your paper or thesis, you will often use these heading levels:

Heading 1: Use heading 1 for the main elements of your paper, such as the “methods,” “results,” “conclusion” and “discussion” sections.

Heading 2: Use heading 2 for the subsections underneath heading 1. For example, under “methods,” include sections describing the “participant selection,” “experiment design’ and “procedure.”

Heading 3: The heading 2 subsections (e.g. “procedure”) can be split up further into subsections such as “data collection” and “data processing.” Use heading 3 for these subsections.

Heading 4 and 5: Depending on your paper, you can also use heading 4 and 5 for subsections that fall underneath heading 3 and 4, respectively.

Aligning Word’s heading styles to APA style

Instead of formatting every heading individually, use Word’s built-in headings feature, which you can find in the toolbar at the top of your document. This is the easiest and fastest way to format all the headings in your paper.

By default, Word’s heading styles do not follow APA style. However, you can change the default settings by right-clicking on the heading style and selecting “modify.”

You can also download the Scribbr APA Heading Word-template. When attaching this template to your Word document the correctly formatted APA headings are added and the heading formatting will automatically apply on all existing headings.

To attach the APA heading template to your Word document go ‘tools’ and ‘Templates and Add-ins’. Next, attach the downloaded template to the document and check the box ‘automatically update heading styles’.