[NFBCS] Creating Headings in Microsoft Word

[Christopher Chaltain]

Others are probably more qualified to help you then I am, but here are a few thoughts.

I would go ahead and create your headings as you go. This way you can use hierarchical navigation as you're writing your paper and you want to jump back and forth between different headings.

Yes, alt+control+1 will create a heading level 1, alt+control+2 will create a heading level 2 and so on. 	You can also create headings and other styles by using the styles dialog which you can get to with control+shift+s. Another neat trick for changing headings is to highlight the heading you want to change and then using alt+shift+left-arrow or right-arrow to increment or decrement a heading, i.e. making a heading 2 a level 3 or a level 2 a level 1 heading.

You might also want to use the title style for your title and then headings for the sections and subsections of your paper. I would agree that things like introduction, literature review, method, and conclusion would make sense for different headings at the same level. Here's where others can give better advice then me, but I wouldn't think so much about the mechanics of the headings. Think about the structure of the paper. How would the table of contents look like or how would you want to use hierarchical navigation to jump between headings? Once you know how you want to structure and group your paper then I think the headings will become more obvious.

I don't know if this example would help or not, but when organizing a journal or a calendar, I might use the following structure:
1. Use the title style for the title, such as "Journal".
2. Use heading level 1 for the years, i.e. 2020, 2021, 2022, ...
3. Heading level 2 would be for the months in each year, January, February, March, ...
4. Heading level 3 would be for the days of each month, such as Sunday, June 20, Monday, June 21, ...
5. Heading level 4 would be used for sections in each day, such as "Diet".
6. I might break it down even further and use heading level 5 for things like breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack.

I know it's a simple and trivial example, but hopefully it helps.

BTW, hierarchical navigation is when you can jump around a web page or a document using the styles in the document. For example, in Word and JAWS, you can turn on hierarchical navigation with JAWS-key+z. JAWS calls this quick keys. When turned on you can use 'h' or shift+h to jump back and forth between headings. '1' and shift+1 will jump between headings at level 1 and so on. To type in your document, turn quick keys off. IMHO, knowing how you might want to jump around your document might also give you some idea how you want to structure it and use headings.

--
Christopher (AKA CJ)
Chaltain at Outlook

-----Original Message-----
From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Leslie Fairall via NFBCS
Sent: Monday, June 21, 2021 9:25 PM
To: David Andrews via NFBCS <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Leslie Fairall <fairall at shellworld.net>
Subject: Re: [NFBCS] Creating Headings in Microsoft Word

Hello:

A few months ago, I asked about how to create headings in Microsoft Word. 
I'm ready to start writing a research proposal for my research methods class. I have a couple of follow-up questions about creating headings.

1. Should I create my headings as I write my paper?
2. I believe the keystroke for creating headings is alt-control and the level of your heading, correct?
3. I'm assuming that the tile of my paper would be heading level 1, correct? I will then have a few sections in the paper such as introduction, literature review, method, and conclusion. So would those topics all be considered heading level 2? I just don't quite understand the heading level part. Thanks.


--
Leslie Fairall
mailto:fairall at shellworld.net

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