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Do I need to use quotes here?

You can find those terms under the separate section called “Earthquakes” later in this chapter.

If no quotes are needed, must the word Earthquake still start with a capital letter?

Or must I set only that word in italic — and if so, then do I still need quotes or is there no need to start with caps if I do so?

I want to use no quotes, no capitals, and no italics, but is that ok?

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    It's a stylistic choice whether to orthographically set off a title like that or not. Using quotes, italics, boldface, underlining, or whatever. Consult your chosen style guyide.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Mar 2, 2020 at 15:44
  • @FumbleFingers What if he chooses a galide instead of guyide?
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Mar 2, 2020 at 15:48
  • @tchrist: I'm down with that - some gals like a bit of a fumble as much as the next guy! :)
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Mar 2, 2020 at 18:25

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This is a question about “cross-references,” the form of which is often prescribed in a publication’s or an organization’s style guide. See the Chicago Manual of Style or some other style-guide for general information on this. Your publisher is likely to have their own standard practice here.

In your example, it appears that you are cross-referencing to a heading — the name of a section within the chapter. Therefore, by most conventions, it should be capitalized and in quotes.

However, whether to use italics, or quotes, or underlines for your cross-referenced titles is a purely local stylistic convention, not a rule set in stone. Do whatever you want, but be consistent. I would say that in my experience that using quotes to set off section or subsection titles is the most common practice. Unfortunately, searching for information about this online results in hundreds of links about how to use various programs (like Microsoft Word, Adobe In Design, etc.) to insert cross-references using their software, not abstract advice about how to style them typographically.

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You always want to use something to specify exactly what the title is.

For example, if we write:

You can find those terms under the separate section called earthquakes later in this chapter.

what is the section called? "Earthquakes"? Maybe, but "Earthquakes later" makes as much grammatical sense.

You can find those terms under the separate section called "Earthquakes Later" in this chapter.

And that's a really simple example. With anything more complex there is lots of opportunity for confusion, and you need something - quotes or italics - to be clear about what the title actually is.

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