When writing subheadings in Spanish, is it natural to include articles and plurals?

Question

In English, when writing single-word subheadings, it is normal to omit the article and use plurals unless the word is for a pluralized category.

For example:

Geopolitics

Geopolitics is the study of the effects of Earth's geography (human and physical) on politics and international relations

History

The study of the past and all past events.

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe

Musicians

Musicians are people who plays a musical instrument or is musically talented.

Natural Disasters

Natural Disasters are a major adverse event resulting from natural processes of the Earth.

In the above History & Science don’t use plurals, because the words refer to a group. None of the subheadings use an article, because an article would make it refer to a specific reference rather than a general reference (e.g. "The musicians" would refer to a specific group of musicians rather than the general concept of musicians).

Do the same rules apply to Spanish? For example, in Spanish would the subheadings be as follows:

Geopolítica

Historia

Ciencia

Músicos

Desastres naturales

When I look these words up in SpanishDic, it lists them with articles and without plurals, so I am not sure if I should be following that format in subheadings. Is SpanishDict just doing that because it is providing dictionary definitions and not subheadings, or is the use of articles a rule in Spanish?

Answer 1

As can be seen in this sample inluded in APA standards, which are usually followed to write scientific articles, headings can take the definite article while subheadings usually don't:

The definite article thus highlights the importance of the main title.

I don't think there are strict rules, and it all comes down to the style manual you are following. As a general rule, I'd recommend using the definite article in headings -- not in subheadings -- especially when the noun is followed by a prepositional phrase, for example: El mercado en la actualidad (The market at present) / El mercado de derivados (The derivatives market)