Extending the document structure hierarchy for a report

Question

For a 11 pt. report document class which I am using for my thesis, I can only get the following heading levels on a per chapter basis:

\chapter

\section

\subsection

\subsubsection

I am not including the paragraph sections above, as they do not pertain to headings.

My question is: is there a way to extend the above limited hierarchy to include more heading levels? Alternatively, is there a package which provides such an extension?

For example in the following MWE:

\documentclass[11pt]{report}
\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\part{This is a part}
\chapter{This is a chapter}
\section{This is a section}
\subsection{This is a subsection}
\subsubsection{This is a subsubsection}
\paragraph{This is a paragraph}
\subparagraph{This is a subparagraph}
\end{document}

There is no numbering generated for the paragraph or the subparagraph....so these would not be captured in TOC. I need to create a numbered hierarchy with more depth than that allowed by above. My actual need is to have another level above the \section{} to form a generic heading for the discussion that follows in the section and the subsections. Is there a way to do this in such a way that it is sequentially numbered automatically, and captured in TOC as well?

TIA

Vinod

Answer 1

The next heading levels are \paragraph and \subparagraph they do pertain to headings they are defined using \@startsection almost exactly the same as \section, but at levels 4 and 5.

The source of these commands in report.cls is below:

\newcommand\section{\@startsection {section}{1}{\z@}%
                                   {-3.5ex \@plus -1ex \@minus -.2ex}%
                                   {2.3ex \@plus.2ex}%
                                   {\normalfont\Large\bfseries}}
\newcommand\subsection{\@startsection{subsection}{2}{\z@}%
                                     {-3.25ex\@plus -1ex \@minus -.2ex}%
                                     {1.5ex \@plus .2ex}%
                                     {\normalfont\large\bfseries}}
\newcommand\subsubsection{\@startsection{subsubsection}{3}{\z@}%
                                     {-3.25ex\@plus -1ex \@minus -.2ex}%
                                     {1.5ex \@plus .2ex}%
                                     {\normalfont\normalsize\bfseries}}
\newcommand\paragraph{\@startsection{paragraph}{4}{\z@}%
                                    {3.25ex \@plus1ex \@minus.2ex}%
                                    {-1em}%
                                    {\normalfont\normalsize\bfseries}}
\newcommand\subparagraph{\@startsection{subparagraph}{5}{\parindent}%
                                       {3.25ex \@plus1ex \@minus .2ex}%
                                       {-1em}%
                                      {\normalfont\normalsize\bfseries}}

\documentclass[11pt]{report}
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{5}
\setcounter{tocdepth}{5}
\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\part{This is a part}
\chapter{This is a chapter}
\section{This is a section}
\subsection{This is a subsection}
\subsubsection{This is a subsubsection}
\paragraph{This is a paragraph}
\subparagraph{This is a subparagraph}
\end{document}