APA 7 heading levels: the five formats and how to use them in a student paper

APA 7 headings come in five levels, and every level has one fixed appearance. Level 1 is centred and bold in title case; level 2 is flush left and bold; level 3 is flush left, bold and italic; levels 4 and 5 are indented, bold (level 5 bold italic), end with a period, and the paragraph continues on the same line. The introduction has no heading at all: the paper's title, repeated in bold at the top of page 2, does that job. Upload the paper to the free APA format checker to see every heading set at the right level.

The five levels

Level	Format	Example
1	Centred, bold, title case	Method
2	Flush left, bold, title case	Participants
3	Flush left, bold italic, title case	Recruitment Procedure
4	Indented, bold, title case, ends with a period, text follows on the same line	Consent. Participants were…
5	Indented, bold italic, title case, ends with a period, text follows	Minors. Parents signed…

All levels use the same 12-point font as the body and are double-spaced like everything else. No extra space above or below, no underlining, no numbering, no all-capitals.

Which levels a student paper needs

Most course papers use one or two levels. A short reflection paper may have none. A paper with Method, Results and Discussion uses level 1 for those and level 2 for Participants, Materials and Procedure. Use levels in order: you cannot have a level 3 without a level 2 above it. Never use a heading for a single subsection — if there is one level 2 under a level 1, there should be at least two.

Title case

Capitalise the first word, all nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and pronouns, and every word of four letters or more. Lowercase short conjunctions, articles and prepositions of three letters or fewer (and, the, of, in) unless they start the heading.

Common deductions

• "Introduction" as a heading. APA 7 papers open with the title repeated, not an Introduction heading.
• Same-level headings that look different, because some were bolded by hand and others used Word's Heading style.
• Level 1 headings flush left. Level 1 is centred.
• Numbered headings (1., 1.1) — not APA style.
• A heading at the bottom of a page with its text on the next. Keep headings with the paragraph that follows.

Checking it automatically

Veermat reads Word's heading styles, and for papers formatted by hand it infers headings from bold short lines and gives every heading of the same size the same level, so a paper cannot come back with half its headings centred and half flush left. Headings are kept with their paragraphs, and the report lists how many were styled.