Citation Guide: American Psychological Association (APA)

Levels of Headings

There are five heading formats in APA.  The section headings (Methods, Results, Discussion, etc) would  be the highest, or the first level, and then depending on how many levels of subheadings there are, progress downward to the next level.  

Heading Level                             Format

1                              Centered, Boldface, Uppercase and

                                            Lowercase Heading

2               Flush left, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading

3                        Indented, boldface, lowercase paragraph heading

                          ending with a period.

4                        Indented, boldface, italicized, lowercase paragraph

                          heading ending with a period.

5                        Indented, italicized, lowercase paragraph heading

                         ending with a period.

 

Example:

Method (1)
Sample Selection (2)
       
Participant Selection (2)
 
        Participant characteristics. (3)
 
        History of participants. (4)
 
        Age and gender of participants. (4)
 
        Participant anomolies. (5)

         

 

« Previous
Continue »
Introduction