The APA format is the official editorial style of the American Psychological Association, or APA, and it is widely used to structure essays and research papers and to document references in the fields of psychology, education, and other health-related fields. If you are using this format to write your assignment, you will be required to include an APA title page at the beginning of your essay or research paper. The APA title page is one of several distinguishing stylistic guidelines of the APA format that set it apart from other citation styles.

The APA title page is typically placed as the first page of your paper. It must contain a running head, which is a shortened version of the title of your work, including a page number. The title is aligned to the top left side of the page, while the page number is aligned to the right.

Typically, the APA title page includes five elements, namely: the running head or page header, which consists of a shortened version of the title, and a page number; the title of your essay of research paper; the author byline, which consists of your complete name; your college, university, of institutional affiliation; and, if specifically requested by your instructor, an author note. The author note, however, is used primarily for publication purposes, such as in books or scholarly journals. If you are not sure about whether to include an author note, consult with your instructor.

The title of your work must be typed in standard capitalization (by using both upper-case and lower-case letters) at the top half of the page, and should be centered between the left and right margins. You do not need to italicize, underline, highlight in bold, or enclose your title within quotation marks. In choosing your title, you must take into consideration that the title must be succinct, and must concisely summarize the main ideas or themes of your research paper. To keep titles brief, the APA format guidelines recommend omitting unimportant words or phrases. For example, the words “method,” “results,” and “a study of” and others provide no useful information, and only lengthen the title, thus they should be avoided. Abbreviations should also be avoided in formulating the title.

For the author byline, you need to type your complete name immediately below the title. Use standard capitalization in typing your name, in uppercase and lowercase letters, and align it to the center of the page. For an APA title page with multiple authors, type the complete names separated by commas and the word “and” before the last author. Below the author byline, type the institutional affiliation. Below is an example of an APA title page with multiple authors:

 

Metaphors of Projection in the Works of Wyndham Lewis, Charles Williams and Graham Greene

By Sander L. Gilman, Jutta Birmele, Jay Geller, and Valerie D. Greenberg

Oxford University