Headings clarify your logic and organization for the reader by establishing a hierarchy of sections in the paper. If you have a subheading under a larger heading, there must be more than one subheading nested under that larger heading. For instance, if you have a Level 1 heading and you want a subheading below it, there needs to be more than one Level 2 heading under the Level 1 heading.

Also, note that title casemeans only the first letters of words with four or more letters are capitalized, while all other letters are left lower case. Sentence case means that only the firstword of a title is capitalized, while all other letters are left lower case.

There are five levels of heading in APA Style. Level 1 is the highest or main level of heading, Level 2 is a subheading of Level 1, Level 3 is a subheading of Level 2, and so on through Levels 4 and 5. There are 5 heading levels in APA. The 6th edition of the APA manual revises and simplifies previous heading guidelines - regardless of the number of levels, always use the headings in order, beginning with level 1. The format of each level is illustrated below: APA Headings (level, format) 1: Centered, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Headings.

When considering the addition of headings, APA instructs that you should only add a heading if there will be 2 or more subsections using the same level heading. If there are not at least 2 subsections using the same level heading, then do not include headings for this subsection. Format of the Five Levels of Heading in APA Style, 7th. APA Style uses a unique headings system to separate and classify paper sections. Headings are used to help guide the reader through a document. The levels are organized by levels of subordination, and each section of the paper should start with the highest level of heading. There are 5 heading levels in APA.

APA style allows five different heading levels. In a Walden doctoral capstone study or project, there is an additional Walden heading level, Level 0. In a doctoral capstone study or project, there are typically three or four heading levels: L0, L1, L2, and, if needed, L3 and L4.

Use a Level 0 heading (or title heading) formatting for the References heading of your reference list as well as for any appendices. The capstone document templates are also formatted with correct APA headings.

(L0) Centered, Title Case Chapter/Section Heading

Text begins on next line as a new paragraph.

(L1) Centered, Boldface, Title Case Heading

Text begins on next line as a new paragraph.

Apa Level 3 Headings

(L2) Flush Left, Boldface, Title Case Heading

Text being on next line as a new paragraph.

(L3) Flush Left, Boldface, Italicized, Title Case Heading

Text begins on next line as a new paragraph.

(L4) Indented, Boldface, Title Case Heading, Ending With a Period. Paragraph text begins on the same line.

(Note that Level 3 and Level 4 APA headings have changed from APA 6. The examples here are from APA 7.)

Apa Level 3 Heading Sample

Additionally, all of the templates are formatted with correct APA headings.

Apa Level 3 Heading

For more information on headings in Walden capstone documents, see the SMRTguides Creating a Literature Review Outline and Correcting Common Errors in the Template Table of Contents.