APA 7 has five heading levels, and every one of them uses title case. The capitalization never changes with depth – what changes is placement, bold, and italics. So the only capitalization question you need to answer is the APA 4-letter rule, applied the same way at every level.
Level 1 and Level 2 headings take APA title case. The APA title capitalizer applies the four-letter rule to a heading so you can paste it straight into the paper.
The Five Levels
| Level | Format | Text begins |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Centered, Bold, Title Case | New paragraph below |
| 2 | Flush Left, Bold, Title Case | New paragraph below |
| 3 | Flush Left, Bold Italic, Title Case | New paragraph below |
| 4 | Indented, Bold, Title Case, ending with a period. | Same line, after the period |
| 5 | Indented, Bold Italic, Title Case, ending with a period. | Same line, after the period |
Levels 4 and 5 are run-in headings: the heading ends with a period and the paragraph continues on the same line. They are still title case, and the final period is part of the heading rather than the sentence that follows.
Headings are never numbered in APA and never take a colon in place of the period at Levels 4 and 5.
Capitalization at Every Level
Because all five levels share one rule, a heading that is correct at Level 1 is correct at Level 5. The 4-letter threshold decides the minor words:
| Word in a heading | AP | APA | Chicago | MLA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| and (3 letters) | Lowercase | Lowercase | Lowercase | Lowercase |
| of (2 letters) | Lowercase | Lowercase | Lowercase | Lowercase |
| with (4 letters) | Capitalize | Capitalize | Lowercase | Lowercase |
| from (4 letters) | Capitalize | Capitalize | Lowercase | Lowercase |
| during (6 letters) | Capitalize | Capitalize | Capitalize | Lowercase |
- Participants and Procedure – "and" stays lowercase at three letters.
- Measures of Working Memory – "of" stays lowercase; "Working" and "Memory" are nouns.
- Data Collected During Wave 2 – "During" is capitalized at six letters.
- Results From the Pilot Study – "From" is capitalized at four letters, "the" is not at three.
Structuring a Paper
A typical empirical paper uses Level 1 for the major sections and Level 2 inside Method. Most papers never need Levels 4 and 5.
| Section | Level |
|---|---|
| Method | 1 |
| Participants | 2 |
| Materials | 2 |
| Procedure | 2 |
| Results | 1 |
| Descriptive Statistics | 2 |
| Discussion | 1 |
APA 7 dropped the separate "Introduction" heading: the paper title, repeated in title case and bold at the top of the first page of text, serves that role. Starting with a Level 1 "Introduction" is one of the most common formatting errors carried over from APA 6.
Five Mistakes to Check For
| Mistake | Fix |
|---|---|
| An "Introduction" heading at Level 1 | Use the paper title instead – APA 7 removed this heading |
| Sentence case in a heading | All five levels are title case |
| Skipping from Level 1 to Level 3 | Levels run in sequence, without gaps |
| Numbered headings (1.1, 1.2) | APA marks level by format, not number |
| A colon ending a Level 4 heading | Levels 4 and 5 end with a period |
For headings that contain a colon in the middle – a title plus subtitle – the word after the colon is always capitalized. Do You Capitalize After a Colon? covers that rule across all four style guides.
To check a set of headings in one pass, paste them into the batch headline checker with APA selected; it flags any line whose capitalization disagrees with the style. The full rule set lives in the capitalization rules guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
Every APA heading level uses the same title case. Paste yours into the converter with APA selected and it applies the 4-letter rule across all five levels at once.
Open the converter with a prefilled example and adapt it to your headline.
Try It NowRelated Articles
About Mia Gomez
Specializes in heading hierarchy and document structure for long-form academic and editorial content.
