A research paper title page is the first page of the file, and each style arranges it differently. APA 7 (student): page number top right, title in bold centered in the upper half, then author, affiliation, course, instructor and due date — all centered. APA 7 (professional): adds a running head in caps flush left. MLA 9: usually no separate title page — a four-line heading block sits at the top left of page one and the centered title follows. Chicago: title about a third of the way down, class details at the bottom.
The title page builder: pick a style, watch it format
Type into the fields and the preview redraws on every keystroke. Switch styles and the layout snaps — block positions, bold rules and the page header all change to match. If your instructor's sample differs from what you see here, the sample wins; formats vary more between departments than most students expect.
Title Page Builder
Seven fields, four styles, one live preview. Nothing is uploaded — the page renders in your browser.
The preview is a visual approximation for planning — exact spacing and fonts depend on your word processor and your instructor's sample. The .txt scaffold gives you the lines and where each one goes.
Fill the boxes in once and they stay filled — the builder autosaves to this browser, so a reload brings your title page back. Two habits worth building now: draft the title after the thesis statement exists, because the title should compress the claim, not preview it. The whole-paper walkthrough shows where this page sits in the drafting order.
The APA title page: student vs professional
APA 7 draws a hard line between the two variants, and grabbing the wrong one is the most common reason a title page gets marked back. The student version is what almost every coursework paper needs; the professional version belongs to manuscripts intended for submission to a journal.
Field order for an APA student title page, top to bottom:
- Page number 1 — flush right in the header. That is the only header element a student paper needs.
- Title — bold, centered, positioned in the upper half of the page, three to four lines from the top margin. Title case, no period, no underline.
- One blank double-spaced line.
- Author — your name, centered, no titles or degrees.
- Affiliation — department and institution, spelled out: "Department of Sociology, Riverside State University".
- Course — code and full name as the catalog writes them.
- Instructor — the name they actually use, title included if they use one.
- Due date — written out: "May 6, 2027".
Student papers skip the running head. The running-head rule people remember from older editions applies to professional manuscripts now. If your syllabus asks for one anyway, treat it as the professional layout below — the builder's Professional tab renders it.
What changes on an APA professional title page:
- Running head — an abbreviated title of 50 characters or fewer, in ALL CAPS, flush left in the header, on every page including this one.
- Page number — flush right in the same header line.
- Title — bold, centered, upper half, exactly like the student version.
- Authors — every author's name, centered, in the order that matches the authorship agreement.
- Affiliations — one line per institution, matched to the authors above.
- Author note — bottom half of the page: ORCID iDs, disclosures, funding, contact address. Student papers don't carry one.
The 50-character cap is real. If your running head won't fit, shorten it to the core keywords — the header is a label, not a second title. "FOOD ACCESS PILOT" works where the full title doesn't.
For everything that happens on page two and beyond — margins, heading levels, the reference list — the full APA paper format guide picks up where this page stops, and the APA citation generator formats the entries that list will hold.
The MLA title page: the block layout and the no-title-page case
Here's the twist most formatting guides bury: MLA 9 usually doesn't want a title page at all. A standard MLA research paper starts on page one with a heading block, then the title, then the text — all on the same page. The block layout runs like this:
- Your name — flush left, first line of the page.
- Instructor's name — second line.
- Course — third line.
- Date — fourth line, day-month-year style ("6 May 2027").
- Title — centered, one blank line below the block. Title case, but not bold, not underlined, not in quotes.
- One blank line, then your introduction begins — no page break.
A separate MLA title page appears only when someone in charge asks for one — group projects, department templates, some competitions. Even then MLA doesn't prescribe an exact design, so the convention is a centered title about a third of the way down with the same four heading details beneath it, and the full MLA paper format guide shows the first-page layout you're most likely to need. One MLA rule never moves: your surname and the page number sit flush right in the header on every page, including the first.
Check the date style before you submit. MLA reads 6 May 2027; APA reads May 6, 2027. Mixing them is a small thing that a picky grader will circle.
The Works Cited that follows your paper runs on its own rules — the MLA citation generator builds those entries from a URL, DOI or ISBN.
The Chicago title page: bibliography style
Chicago (notes-bibliography style, the one history departments usually assign) gives the title page the most room to breathe. The layout, in order:
- Title — centered, in title case, positioned about one third of the way down the page. Not bold, not underlined.
- Subtitle — if there is one, on the next line after the colon, also centered.
- Author — your name, centered, several lines below the title.
- Course, instructor, date — each on its own centered line, near the bottom of the page.
Count the title page in the numbering, but don't print a number on it — the first visible page number shows up on page two. The bibliography-style note matters less for the title page itself and more for what follows: Chicago papers carry footnotes and a bibliography rather than APA-style references, so check which flavor your department means before you format anything else. The title page is the easy part; the outline guide handles the structure underneath it.
Running head and page numbers, style by style
The header is where styles disagree most, and it's the part students get wrong most. Four rules, one per style:
- APA student — page number flush right, starting at 1 on the title page. No running head.
- APA professional — running head in ALL CAPS flush left, page number flush right, both on every page from the title page onward.
- MLA 9 — surname plus page number flush right on every page, including the first. No running head by that name — the surname is the running header.
- Chicago — the title page counts in the numbering but displays no number; pages after it show one. Where the number sits (top right or bottom center) is a department choice — follow the sample.
Word processors love to sabotage this: the classic failure is a title page numbered "1" that shows on the page, or a header that prints the running head in lowercase. Set the header once in your template, then check it in print preview — headers hide in normal editing view until you double-click into them.
Title page format rules at a glance
Everything above, compressed into one table. The builder reproduces all four columns live.
| Style | Header, top of page | Title placement | Other lines | Font, typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| APA 7 · student | Page number, flush right | Bold, centered, upper half | Author, affiliation, course, instructor, due date — centered | 12-pt Times New Roman or an allowed sans such as 11-pt Calibri |
| APA 7 · professional | Running head (ALL CAPS) left + page number right | Bold, centered, upper half | Authors, affiliations, author note in bottom half | Same as student |
| MLA 9 | Surname + page number, flush right | Centered below the heading block, regular weight | Heading block at top left: name, instructor, course, date | 12-pt legible font, usually Times New Roman |
| Chicago (NB) | None shown on the title page | Centered, about one third down | Author below title; course, instructor, date near the bottom | 12-pt readable serif, Times New Roman is the usual pick |
One field matters long after submission day: the title itself. Titles in every style use title case — capitalize the first word, the last word, and every major word in between; leave articles, short prepositions and conjunctions lowercase. A title that runs past about twelve words usually has a subtitle trying to escape it, which is exactly what the colon is for.
Five title-page mistakes, flipped
Four of these show up every marking week. Tap a card to see the fix; the fifth sits in the note below because it isn't about looks.
The title is a full sentence with a period.
Tap to flip
Titles take no ending period and rarely need a full clause. Cut back to the noun phrases that carry the study — "Community Gardens and Food Access" — and push the story into the subtitle after a colon.
Everything is in ALL CAPS "for emphasis".
Tap to flip
Title case is the emphasis system, and the only caps in the header are the APA professional running head. An all-caps title reads as shouting, and every style guide treats it that way.
The date line says "due Friday" or 5/6/27.
Tap to flip
Write the date out the way your style spells it — "May 6, 2027" for APA, "6 May 2027" for MLA. Ambiguous numeric dates get read in the wrong order across the Atlantic, and "due Friday" expires before your grader opens the file.
A decorative cover: borders, clip art, giant fonts.
Tap to flip
No style guide asks for a poster. Plain white page, the style's font at its normal size, positions as above. Decoration reads as padding, and it breaks the header your department's grader checks first.
Mistake five — the filename. "Final_v3_REAL_final.docx" tells your instructor nothing and buries you in their downloads folder. Name the file with your surname, the course code and a short title: "Ellis_SOC214_Food-Access.docx". Some rubrics grade the submission ritual, not just the page.
Does your title need a colon? A 30-second drill
The colon is the title page's one piece of punctuation that carries rules. Five quick picks — wrong answers reveal the correct one, and each comes with the reason.
1. Your paper has a main idea plus a subtitle. How do you join the two?
2. Which of these titles is punctuated correctly?
3. When does a research paper title NOT need a colon?
4. Your main title is a question — "Do practice quizzes beat rereading?" — and you want a subtitle too. What happens to the punctuation?
5. In APA style, which part of a two-part title is bold on the title page?
One caveat the drill can't teach: a title is not a thesis. The colon trick fixes punctuation, but the words on either side still have to say something — the introduction funnel and the abstract builder both start from a title worth compressing.
The submission check
Sixty seconds before you export the file. Tap each line as it clears.
0 of 7 checks
- Style confirmed from the syllabus — APA student, APA professional, MLA or Chicago
- Title is in title case, bold only where the style says, no ending period
- Your name matches the roster exactly — no nicknames, no missing middle line
- Affiliation spelled out: department plus institution, not a logo or an abbreviation
- Course code and full course name, copied from the catalog
- Instructor's name spelled the way they spell it, title included if they use one
- Date written out in the style's order, and the filename carries your surname
Page one formatted, but the deadline owns pages two to twenty?
If the title page is done and the draft behind it refuses to cooperate, a quoted, deadline-bound writer can take the paper off your hands and hand back a draft you can defend — formatted, cited, and built to your brief.
Frequently asked questions
Does an MLA research paper need a title page?
Usually no. MLA 9's default is a first page with the four-line heading block — your name, the instructor, the course, the date — followed by the centered title and then the text, all on page one. A separate title page enters the picture only when an instructor, a group-project template or a competition asks for one, and since MLA doesn't prescribe its exact design, the convention is a centered title about a third of the way down with the same four details underneath. Whatever you do, keep the surname-and-page-number header running on every page, including the first.
Where does the running head go in APA?
Flush left in the header, in ALL CAPS, on every page including the title page — but only on professional manuscripts. APA 7 removed the running head from student papers, so a coursework assignment needs just the page number, flush right. If your syllabus still asks students for a running head, follow the syllabus: the rule you'll be graded on is the one in the assignment brief, not the edition.
How long can a research paper title be?
APA recommends keeping the main title to roughly twelve words; MLA and Chicago set no number but reward titles a reader can parse in one breath. The workable test: if your title needs a second breath, split it at the natural break and push the tail into a subtitle after a colon. Then the header version — the running head — needs its own trim to fifty characters, so practice cutting early. When word counts start to pile up elsewhere, the word counter keeps the body honest.
Do I bold the title in MLA?
No. MLA titles sit centered in the same font and weight as the body text — no bold, no underline, no quotation marks around your own title. The only styling exceptions are titles-of-works-inside-your-title: a book named in your title gets italicized exactly as it would in a Works Cited entry. APA is the style that bolds; MLA trusts plain type, and Chicago on a title page keeps to plain centered lines too.
What if my instructor's sample looks different from the style guide?
The sample wins, every time. Departments layer house rules on top of each style — a centered due date, a logo slot, double-spacing quirks — and the person marking your paper compares it against the sample, not against the manual. Treat the builder here as the baseline, then adjust to whatever the brief overrides. If the brief is silent, the style guide applies.
Is the title page counted in the word count or the page count?
Almost never in the word count — title pages, abstracts and reference lists are usually excluded, which is why the word target your brief quotes refers to body text. Page counts sometimes include it, sometimes don't; APA numbers it as page 1, Chicago counts it without showing a number. When the brief says "2,000 words, five pages", the safe read is: 2,000 words of body text, five pages of everything. If you're unsure, ask before submission.
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