Thank you very much. I think you have put me on the right track to solving this problem. It is a fact that at various locations within the document I have used the functions you mentioned. Styles in formatting have not been used.

What I think is challenging is finding common ground between individual creativity and preformatted styling. Admittedly, I have tried creating my own 'style' of presentation, which may not always coincide with Microsoft Word formatting.

The thing is that you can create your own styles or modify the built-in styles to suit your formatting. If you are working on a project of this size without using them, you are shooting yourself in the foot. I guarantee that if you spend four hours learning to use styles you will recover that time within a week and from then on you'll be time and work ahead. Here is another couple of links you may find helpful.
Tips for Understanding Styles in Word by Shauna Kelly
Basic Concepts of Microsoft Word - from Shauna Kelly

I take the liberty of quoting myself from the first link I gave you:

Trying to use Word without understanding and using styles is like pushing on a string. I resisted learning and using styles for years and now regret every day of those years because although that string was still very hard to push, it kept getting longer and longer, and had some very important projects tied to it! Once you understand styles and the Word concept of organizing things into Chinese boxes everything falls into place and instead of pushing a string, you can push a button that turns on the very powerful text processing machine known as Microsoft Word and it will start doing your work for you instead of running around behind you trying to undo what you thought you just did.