Ohio University College of Business Communication Standards

Example: COB Report Headings
FIRST-LEVEL HEADINGS
The title of your report, book, or article is the first-degree heading. Since you have only one
title, no other heading should be written in the same form. As illustrated here, the title uses
the superior form and position.
Second-Level Headings
If you use solid capitals centered on the page for the first-degree heading (title), a good
choice for the second-degree headings (usually Roman numbered in the outline) is caps and
lowercase.
Third-Level Headings
To distinguish the third-degree headings from their superiors, you may put them at the left
margin above the text, bold them for emphasis and write them in caps and lowercase (as
shown here).
Fourth-Level Headings. For a fourth-level heading, you may place headings on the same
line with the text. Capitalize each word. These headings definitely need to be underscored or
bolded and separated from the first sentence by a period, as shown.
Fifth-level headings can be integral parts of the first sentence of the first paragraph about a
topic. Underscoring OR italicizing will emphasize these headings sufficiently without
further distinctions in form.
Advice: Before writing your report, create a report outline like the one below. Doing so will
help you organize your topics and table of contents. Note that the report layout above does
not include numbers and letters used in the outline itself.
I. Introduction (Second-Degree Heading)
Example Report Outline
II. Recommendations for Strategic Growth (Second-Degree Heading)
A. Go Global (Third-Degree Heading)
1. European Market (Fourth-Degree Heading)
a. Interviews (Fifth-Degree Heading)
b. Surveys (Fifth-Degree Heading)
2. Pacific Rim (Fourth-Degree Heading)
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