Title Page
Like the rest of your paper, your whole title page should be double-spaced. The following information should be centered horizontally and vertically on the title page:
- on the first line, the full title of your paper
- on the second line, your name
- on the third line, the name of the institution you are affiliated with (e.g., the name of your school)
These elements should not be bolded, underlined, or italicized.
Running Head
The running head is an element unique to APA style. The purpose of the running head is to make the paper identifiable without using the name of the author; this style is commonly used in journal articles, since journals need to be able to evaluate a paper without bias toward the author.
Left-justified in the header (i.e., at the very top) of your title page, you should have the text “Running head:” followed by an abbreviated title of your paper in all caps. This is usually the first several words of your title and cannot exceed 50 characters in length (including spaces). The abbreviated title, still in all caps, should then appear at the same place—left-justified in the header—on every following page of your paper, but without the text “Running head:” preceding it (that should appear only on the title page).
Any word-processing program should allow you to edit the page header so that the same information appears on every page. You will have to change the options so that the first page is different, so you can include the text “Running head:” only on the title page. Your header and footer should appear 0.5 inches from the edge of the page—this is also an option you can change in your word-processing program.
Title page
This is an example of a title page properly formatted in APA style.