APA Title Page: Student vs. Professional (With Templates)

You built your title page from a template you found online. It had a bold header running across every page and a paragraph explaining the study's funding under your name, and your professor still marked it down.

That template used the professional APA title page format, and your assignment called for the student version. If that sounds familiar, you're not the only one: plenty of templates floating around blend pieces of both without saying so. APA 7, the current edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, splits the title page into two versions: student and professional (APA 7, Sections 2.3-2.7). Picking the wrong one is one of the easiest points to lose on an otherwise solid paper, and one of the easiest to fix. This guide walks through both versions line by line, with a copy-ready template for the one almost every class paper actually needs.

Two title pages, not one: what changed in APA 7

APA 6 used a single title page format, built around a running head that every writer had to include, student or professional. APA 7 split that into two distinct versions, and the split is one of the biggest changes from the sixth edition to the seventh. Our rundown of the APA 7th edition changes that still trip up graduate students covers the rest of that shift, but the title page is usually where people notice it first, because it is the first page anyone reads.

The two versions share almost nothing beyond being centered and double-spaced. The student version drops the running head and the author note entirely. The professional version keeps both and drops the course number, the instructor's name, and the due date, because a journal submission has none of those. Match the version to the assignment and the rest of the page falls into place.

APA built the split around what each document does next. A class paper stays inside your course, read by an instructor who already knows who wrote it and when it was due, so a running head is dead weight on it. A manuscript headed to a journal circulates well past one reader, so it keeps the running head and the author note a class assignment has no use for. Same manual, different documents, different problems to solve. If your assignment sheet doesn't say which version to use, default to the student page. It's the safe choice for coursework at every level, including most graduate seminars, and the professional version stays reserved for the rare case where a professor explicitly asks you to prepare something for submission.

The student APA title page format, line by line

If you are turning in a paper for a class, this is almost certainly the version you need. Every element is centered and double-spaced, and none of it needs a running head or an author note.

1. Title, bold, centered, sitting in the upper half of the page (about three to four lines down from the top), written in title case and no more than about 12 words: The Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Academic Performance.
2. One blank double-spaced line under the title. This is spacing, not a line of text you type.
3. Author name: your full name. Jordan Lee.
4. Author affiliation: your department, then your school. Department of Psychology, State University.
5. Course number and name: PSY 101: Introduction to Psychology.
6. Instructor name: Dr. Maria Torres.
7. Assignment due date, written out: October 5, 2026.

Building it is mostly two settings. Select the whole page, set alignment to center (Home → Paragraph → Center, or Cmd/Ctrl+E), and set line spacing to double (Home → Paragraph → Line and Paragraph Spacing → 2.0). Bold only the title itself: select the title text, apply bold, then turn bold back off before you type your name on the line below. Everything else on the page stays regular, unbolded text.

Copy the seven lines above into a blank document in that order and you have the entire page. No abstract belongs here either, and none is required on a student paper unless your instructor specifically asks for one. If you're formatting a thesis or dissertation instead of a class paper, your program usually layers its own requirements on top of this format, so treat it separately using our guide to formatting a dissertation title page in APA 7.

The professional title page: who actually needs it

The mistake: using the professional format, or borrowing pieces of it, for a class assignment.

The professional title page is for manuscripts being submitted for publication: journal articles, conference papers, anything headed past your instructor and toward an editorial review. It keeps everything centered and double-spaced like the student version, but it adds two things the student version never has: a running head in the page header, and an author note beneath the affiliation. It drops the course number, the instructor's name, and the due date, because none of those apply to a submitted manuscript.

Why it matters: the two formats solve different problems. A running head exists so an editorial office can identify a page if a manuscript gets separated from the rest. A due date exists so your professor knows the paper came in on time. Neither has any use in the other's context, which is exactly why APA 7 stopped requiring both from every writer.

Why your student paper doesn't need a running head

Under APA 6, the running head, a shortened version of your title printed in capital letters, was mandatory for every paper regardless of who was writing it. Under APA 7, it only belongs on the professional title page, and even there the format changed: APA 7 dropped the "Running head:" label that used to sit in front of it under APA 6. A professional manuscript's header now shows only the shortened title itself, in capital letters, at 50 characters or fewer, with nothing labeling it.

Unless your instructor tells you otherwise, your student paper needs no running head at all, not in the header, not anywhere on the page. Check by opening Insert → Header in Word or Insert → Headers & footers in Google Docs. If anything other than a plain page number shows up, delete it, because it likely carried over from an old template or a classmate's paper from a different class.

The three mistakes that cost the most points

The mistake: typing the word "Title" above the actual title and bolding it like a label. Nothing in APA 7 calls for a label. The title itself is the only bold text at the top of the page.

The mistake: adding a running head to a student paper because an old template or a friend's paper happened to have one. Unless the assignment specifically asks for it, the header on a student paper stays free of a running head.

The mistake: reordering the bottom half of the page, putting the due date before the instructor's name, or the course before the affiliation. The order is fixed: name, affiliation, course number and name, instructor, due date, each on its own line, in that sequence.

Why it matters: the title page is the first thing your professor sees, before your argument, before your evidence. Getting the version wrong signals that the rest of the paper might be following outdated or half-remembered rules too, and graders notice a title page before they notice anything else. Plenty of grading rubrics list the title page as its own line item, worth points independent of your writing, which makes it free points to bank or lose before your professor reads word one of the actual paper.

The fix: bold only the title, leave the running head off unless it was assigned, and check the five lines below the title against the order above before you submit.

Build it right the first time

You can build either version of the title page by hand now that you know which one applies. It's also exactly the kind of two-minute detail that's easy to get backwards on a deadline, so we built StyleMyPaper to apply the correct student or professional layout automatically, along with the rest of your APA 7 formatting. See how the APA formatting tool handles it, and check our complete student guide to APA 7th edition format for everything that comes after the title page.