APA Title Page: Student and Professional Format (7th Edition)

An APA title page is the first page of your paper, and APA 7th edition gives you two distinct versions to choose from: a student title page and a professional title page. Knowing which one your assignment requires, and exactly how to lay it out, keeps your work looking polished before a single sentence of the body is read. This guide walks through both formats line by line, with worked layouts, precise spacing rules, and the small details that graders and editors notice.

Student vs. Professional: Which Title Page Do You Need?

The biggest update in APA 7 was splitting the title page into two templates. The student version is the default for coursework unless your instructor says otherwise. The professional version is built for manuscripts submitted to journals, conferences, or other scholarly outlets.

• Student title page includes the paper title, author name, affiliation (your school and department), course number and name, instructor name, and the assignment due date. The page number appears in the top-right corner.
• Professional title page includes the paper title, author name(s), affiliation(s), an author note, and a running head in the page header alongside the page number.

If you are unsure which to use, follow your instructor or the publication’s submission guidelines. For everything that follows the title page, our APA format guide covers margins, headings, and the body in full.

Shared Formatting: Font, Margins, and Spacing

Both versions share the same baseline formatting, so get these right first.

• Margins: 1 inch on all four sides.
• Font: a legible, widely available typeface. APA recommends 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, 12-point Times New Roman, 11-point Georgia, or 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode. Use one font consistently throughout.
• Line spacing: double-spaced, with no extra blank lines inserted manually (set spacing before and after paragraphs to 0).
• Alignment: the title block is centered; the author note (professional only) is left-aligned.
• Page number: a numeral in the top-right corner of the header, starting at 1 on the title page.

A common slip is adding stray returns to “push” the title down. Instead, rely on double spacing and the correct number of blank double-spaced lines, as shown in the layouts below.

The Title Itself

The title is the visual anchor of the page in both formats.

• Center the title and set it in bold.
• Position it in the upper half of the page, roughly three to four double-spaced lines down from the top margin (about the upper third).
• Use title case: capitalize the first word, the first word after a colon, and all major words. Keep it focused, ideally no more than about 12 words.
• If the title runs to two lines, double-space it and keep both lines bold and centered.
• Do not underline, italicize, or put the title in quotation marks, and do not end it with a period.

Leave one blank double-spaced line between the title and the author name in both versions.

Worked Layout: Student Title Page

Here is the full top-to-bottom order for a student title page. Each line below sits on its own centered, double-spaced line in the upper-to-middle portion of the page.

Notes on the student layout:

• The affiliation lists your department first, then your institution, separated by a comma.
• The course line uses the number and full name, for example PSY 215: Cognitive Psychology.
• Write the instructor’s name as they prefer (often with title, such as Dr. Anita Rao).
• Write the due date in month, day, year format, not the date you started the paper.
• No running head is required for student papers in APA 7.

Worked Layout: Professional Title Page

The professional version replaces the course, instructor, and date lines with an author note, and it adds a running head to the header.

Notes on the professional layout:

• Running head: a shortened version of the title in ALL CAPS, up to 50 characters including spaces, flush left in the header on every page. The label “Running head:” used in APA 6 has been dropped.
• Multiple authors: list names in order of contribution. Use “and” before the last author; for three or more, use commas and “and” (for example, Maria L. Chen, David O. Stein, and Priya Nair).
• Author note: appears in the bottom half of the page. Center and bold the label “Author Note,” then add left-aligned, first-line-indented paragraphs in this order: ORCID iDs, any changes in author affiliation, disclosures and acknowledgments, and finally the correspondence address with an email.
• Affiliations connect each author to their department and institution; superscript numbers are used when authors have different affiliations.

Step-by-Step Setup in Your Word Processor

1. Set all margins to 1 inch and choose an approved font and size.
2. Turn on double spacing and set paragraph spacing before and after to 0.
3. Insert a page number in the top-right of the header. For a professional paper, also type the running head in caps at the left of the same header.
4. Press Enter three or four times from the top so the title lands in the upper third, then type and bold the centered title.
5. Add one blank line, then type the author, affiliation, and remaining lines for your chosen format.
6. For a professional paper, move to the lower half of the page and add the centered, bold “Author Note” with its paragraphs.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Mixing the two formats: do not add course and instructor lines to a professional paper, or an author note to a student paper.
• Forgetting bold on the title: APA 7 requires a bold title; APA 6 did not.
• Reversing the affiliation: department comes before institution.
• Adding “Running head:” text: that label is gone in APA 7. Just the caps title and page number.
• Wrong title case or a trailing period: capitalize major words and end the title with no punctuation.
• Inconsistent font: the title page font must match the rest of the paper.

After the Title Page

Once the title page is set, your references must match APA conventions just as carefully. When you build entries, sentence-case article titles, italicize journal and book titles, use an ampersand inside parentheses, and apply et al. for three or more authors (see what et al. means). Our free APA citation generator formats each source for you, and the APA reference page guide shows how to assemble the list with a hanging indent. For the body of the paper, review APA in-text citations and the difference between parenthetical and narrative citations.

If you are comparing styles for a different class, the APA vs. MLA comparison and our overview of citation styles are good starting points, and the MLA title page guide covers that format’s heading. You can also generate sources in MLA, Chicago, or Harvard when an assignment calls for them.

A correct APA title page is one of the easiest places to earn full formatting marks. Decide whether your paper is student or professional, set your margins and font once, center and bold the title in the upper third, and follow the exact line order shown above. Get those basics right and the rest of your APA paper starts on solid ground.