than 30 words. Run on smaller quotations in the text within
single quotation marks, ‘like this’.)
In addition to its component main sections each chapter
will need a relatively brief, untitled section of lead-in text at
the beginning, and a short section of lead-out text labelled
‘Conclusions’ at the end. Each of these smaller bits should be
between 200 and around 1000 words only. Readers will univer-
sally expect that the text placed at the very beginning of each
chapter is lead-in material, so you do not need to label it
‘Introduction’. (Using this redundant subheading can often be
a quick way to make your overall scheme of headings and sec-
tions start to malfunction badly: see below.) However, your
lead-out materials will always need a heading to mark them
out, preferably at second-order level so that readers will not
expect to find here a longer section than they will actually get.
Thus in outline my recommended complete schema of sections
for a chapter (let’s say Chapter 3) is:
ORGANIZING A CHAPTER OR PAPER◆ 79Introductory text [no subhead]
200 to 1000 words
3.1 First main section [first-order heading]
2000 to 2500 words
3.2 Second main section [first-order heading]
2000 to 2500 words
3.3 Third main section [first-order heading]
2000 to 2500 words
3.4 Fourth main section [first-order heading]
2000 to 2500 words
Conclusions [second-order subhead]
200 to 1000 wordsSince this pattern looks very straightforward, it may seem sur-
prising that authors ever have difficulties with partitioning
chapters. But in fact three mistakes are commonplace: under-
organizing chapters; overorganizing them; and organizing
different chapters in different ways.