Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings)

Headings are used to divide an article into sections. This helps both writers to structure their text better and makes it easier for readers to understand the article.

Wording

Wording

In general, heading titles should be nouns or noun phrases. See also is an exception to this rule. Thus "Behaviour in the wild", not "About their behaviour in the wild".

"The", "a" and "an" should be omitted from the beginning of heading titles. Thus "Mammals", not "The mammals".

Avoid restating the subject of the article or of an enclosing section in heading titles. It is assumed that you are writing about the same subject, so you usually do not need to refer to it again. Thus "Early life", not "His early life".

Standard headings and ordering

Some heading titles have standard wording, and appear in a standard sequence, as indicated below.

• See also
• References
• External links
• Footnotes

The wording or capitalisation of these headings must not be changed.

Capitalisation

Capitalise the first letter of the first word and any proper nouns in headings, but leave the rest lower case. Thus "Rules and regulations", not "Rules and Regulations".

Linking

Avoid links within headers. Depending on settings, some users may not see them clearly. It is much better to put the appropriate link in the first sentence under the header.

Special characters

Avoid using special characters in headings, such as an ampersand (&), a plus sign (+), curly braces ({}), or square braces ([]). In place of the ampersand, use the word "and" unless the ampersand is part of a formal name.

Markup

Use the == (two equal signs) style markup for headings, not the ''' (triple apostrophes) used to make words appear bold in character formatting.

Start with "==", add the heading title, then end with "==".

The reasons for this are:

• Sections can be automatically numbered for users with that preference set.
• A table of contents can be automatically generated from the sections.
• Sections can be edited individually.
• Words within properly marked headers are given greater weight in searches.
• Visually impaired users may be using software which begins by giving a summary of the article, built from the heading tags.

Nesting

Nest headings correctly, for the same reasons as above. The top-level heading of any page is a H1 which gives the article title. The headings within the article must therefore be H2, ie "==".

Below that, the sub-heading of "==" is "===", the sub-sub-heading below that is "====" and so on.

Example:

==Heading 1== 
===Heading 1.1=== 
====Heading 1.1.1==== 
==Heading 2==

Spaces

Spaces below headings are completely optional. According to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, a single blank line below the heading will not affect the appearance of the heading in any way (multiple blank lines will add white space); it is much like the issue of whether to use one or two spaces after a full stop. It only affects the appearance of the text in the edit box, so use whichever approach works for you.

Tables of contents (overview)

For each article with more than three headings, a table of contents (TOC) is automatically generated from the section headings, unless:

• (for a user) preferences are set to turn it off
• (for an article) in the edit box the code __NOTOC__ is added

The TOC is put before the first section header unless it is placed manually with the code __TOC__. Thus there may be some introductory text before it, known as the "lead". See Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Lead section for recommendations on the length of that section.

For more on tables of contents see Wikipedia:Section#Table of contents(TOC).

Floating the TOC

The TOC can, when an editor chooses, be floated either right or left using {{TOCright}} or {{TOCleft}}. It is not always a good idea to do this. For more on floating the TOC, including guidelines on when it is advisable, see Wikipedia:Section#Floating the TOC.

See also

• Wikipedia:Section explains sections and table of contents which are generated with creation of headings.

External links

• Nesting headings correctly