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APA Professional Paper

Title page

1. Write your title

Press Enter three or four times. Go to the Home tab, center the text, write your title and put it in bold. You want to write it in title case, meaning that all important words start with a capital letter, but you should not use abbreviations in the title. If you have a longer title, or a subtitle, you can split it on to the next line. 

Image showing where the paper title appears

2. State who wrote the paper

Press Enter twice to put a space between the title and author byline. Disselect from the Home tab the Bold option. Write the author or authors. You should include your first name, middle initial, and last name. If there are more than one authors, separate each person with a comma, and write out ‘and’ before the final author. Do not include any titles or degrees. When you finish writing the author(s) names, press Enter to move on to a new line.

Image showing the paper's author

3. State your affiliation

Your affiliation can be:

  • academic, then include your department or division, and institution.
  • nonacadenic, then include your department or division, organization name, and location.
  • authors in private practice, then include your location (city, state, province, or territory and country).

Regardless of which type of affiliation you have, separate each element of the affiliation with a comma. When you provide your affiliation press Enter seven times to add blank lines.

Image showing the author's affiliation

4. Add an author note

An author note provides additional information. You can organize the additional information in separate paragraphs that may include, ORCID iDs , changes of affiliation, disclosures and acknowledgements, and contact information. Start the note with the title 'Author Note'. Keep it  in Bold, centered, and title case. Press Enter to change line and start writing the note. Format the paragraphs using first line indentation. When you finish writing the note, go to the Insert  tab and add a page break to ensure that the abstract of your paper will start on a new page.

Image showing an author note

Once you've done that, you have finished formatting the title page, and you are ready to move on to formatting the abstract of your paper.