Headings and Titles

Recognizing Headings and Titles

It is important to listen carefully to the dictation to recognize headings and titles. Many clients rarely use the word "heading" or "title" when they want these elements added to a document, so it is important for typists to be aware of how to add them as needed.

Be careful not to extract information from a sentence in the body of a document to create headings or titles. If the client doesn't dictate them, do not add them.

Titles

In a letter or memorandum, some clients may just say something like, "This is a status report to the client". In this instance, "Status Report" would be the document's title.

When a client dictates a document that is not correspondence, they may just give some identifying information at the beginning of the audio which can be treated as a title. For example, they may say, " September 12, 2017 Conference" before going on to dictate the narrative. This phrase would be formatted as the document's title.

Headings

Some clients may refer to headings by a variety of different names (caption, subheading, paragraph title, subcaption, etc.). It is the typist's job to recognize that it is functioning as a heading and format it as such. Additionally, some clients will simply dictate a word (or a few words), or a date or page number, and then begin a new sentence. This is a valid request for a heading that a typist must recognize.

Default Formats

Absent any client instructions for heading and title formatting, follow our defaults:

Titles should be centered, all caps, and bold.
Headings should be typed at the left margin in all caps.

Multiple Levels of Headings

Sometimes clients will add subheadings below regular headings without providing formatting instructions. In this circumstance, use the format below.

If the Client Dictates a Format: Use It

All of the default formatting explained in the above articles apply only if the client doesn't make their own formatting requests.

When clients give formatting instructions for headings and/or titles (bold, underlined, italics, small caps, etc.), follow them exclusively.
If a client dictates the formatting for a title, but not for the headings, use SW default formatting for the headings, and vice versa (title formatting and heading formatting are unrelated).

NOTE: If the client asks for "caps" for a heading or a title, that means all caps.