I formatted the titles of section and subsections in italic, and it appears italic in the Table of Contents, I want no influence on the Table of Contents. For example
\subsection{\textit{The RGE for the $SU(N)$ Chern-Simons free energy}}
this will appear in the Table of Contents in italics:
The RGE for the SU(N) Chern-Simons free energy
\documentclass{...}and ending with\end{document}. – lockstep May 03 '13 at 06:23sectstyortitlesecpackage can help with this. It is preferred to use a package, for the sake of consistency. – Werner May 03 '13 at 06:39