Handbooks for academic writing are specific to a given language. However, one thing remains standard. No matter what language a piece of text is written in, a table of contents, whether it is placed at the beginning or at the end of a piece, will always be included in various kinds of academic writing. This article will compare Polish and German methods of constructing tables of content. The patterns for constructing a table of contents are outlined by norms and standards which are set and followed by each country. In Poland they are known as PN (Polish Norm) and in Germany as DIN (Deutsche Industrie Norm-German Norm). International norms are known as ISO (International Organization for Standarization) and then in Europe as EN (European Norm). In general, norms set for constructing table of contents do not illustrate a particular or set way of doing so. In this paper 50 German and 50 Polish table of contents from handbooks for academic writing will be compared, in order to analyse what specific differences appear between these two different cultures and if the chosen norm has in any way benefited the author.