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Running Head: TITLE OF ESSAY

Title of Essay
First Name Last Name
University of Advancing Technology
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TITLE OF ESSAY

Title of Paper
Assignments for this course should follow the general formatting outlined in this template

document. The general formatting guidelines for the title page are described in more detail

below. But this is what your document, starting with the first page of your essay after the title

page would look like. You remove the “Running Head” from the title in your header and insert a

page number. Note that you are starting here with page 2. The title page and anything that comes

before it (for example the abstract, which is not required for our purposes) need to be numbered.

Obviously, if you were writing a real essay, this is where your introduction would go. You would

already be drawing your readers into your topic and trying to get their attention. I don’t think that

starting out the way I did here probably grabbed your attention very well. I should have started

out with something catchier like, “if you read this you will get extra credit” or something. But

how could I give you extra credit for meeting the minimum requirements? Oh, dear, I have

written myself into a dilemma. Perhaps we should move on. [That is not an example of a good

thesis statement.]

You will have to insert a section break between your title page and the first page of your

essay. Otherwise the “Header” will try to repeat itself over and over again. You can insert a

Section Break from the Page Layout / Breaks menu. When you have the Header open, you will

also have to turn off the “Link to Previous” option to stop it repeating. That’s a lot of work

already and you haven’t even started writing the essay. Gosh. But this is what your body

paragraphs would look like if you were writing them. You would be making all kinds of great

points to support your thesis and then backing them up with solid evidence.

I suggest using a template like this one for your essays so that you do not have to do all of

this formatting every single time. As I was typing, I also just noticed that the double spacing

between my paragraphs was wonky. Be sure to highlight the text of your essay, right click and
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TITLE OF ESSAY
choose Paragraph, make sure that your Line Spacing is on Double and also that the Spacing

Before and After are both set to 0 pt. Otherwise, you’re going to have strange gaps every time

you hit the Enter key between paragraphs. And you don’t want that.

Are you still reading? Oh, dear, now that wasn’t a good example of how to begin a

paragraph. I always tell students that they are best to avoid asking their readers questions,

because as a writer you are supposed to be the authority. And so asking your readers lots of

questions (or using lots and lots of punctuation marks?!>!>!) isn’t actually that effective and can

really put a reader off. If I were really writing a paper, I would provide some type of transition

between my paragraphs to allow readers a way to follow my points and tie everything clearly

back to my thesis. But since this isn’t a paper, I’m wondering why these song lyrics are currently

stuck in my head: “Andale, Andale, Mommy. E.I. E.I. oh, ohhhh / Keep your head right / Nelly

said it. Heard right”? It is a quandary, for sure. If Nelly turned in that kind of writing in my

English 101 class, I would probably not give him many points. But it does make for a catchy

chorus.

I know there were other things I was going to say and important points I was going to

make about garden gnomes and how I once used a Penny Arcade comic as part of presentation

during a job interview, but I should probably wrap this up. How many times did I just use “I” in

the last sentence? That’s something we can be aware of in our own writing. If you are making a

point, like I don’t think garden gnomes are very cool. You can just say: Garden gnomes are not

cool. You don’t have to say “I don’t think”, because it’s your essay and so that already implies

the “I don’t think.” Does that makes sense? This is where I would put a conclusion, by the way,

at the end. [This is not a good example of a conclusion. But more APA guideline stuff follows.]

General Format
General APA Guidelines
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TITLE OF ESSAY
Your essay should be typed, double-spaced on standard-sized paper (8.5" x 11") with 1" margins
on all sides. You should use 12 pt. Times New Roman font.
Include a page header at the top of every page. To create a page header, insert page numbers
flush right. Then type "TITLE OF YOUR PAPER" in the header flush left.
Major Paper Sections
Normally, an APA essay would include four major sections: the Title Page, Abstract, Main
Body, and References. Since we are writing short papers that will most likely not require
citations, you will probably not need to include a References page. You do not need to prepare
Abstracts.
Title Page
The title page should contain the title of the paper, the author's name, and the institutional
affiliation. Include the page header (described above) flush left with the page number flush right
at the top of the page. Please note that on the title page, your page header should look like this:
Running head: TITLE OF YOUR PAPER
Pages after the title page should have a running head that looks like this:
TITLE OF YOUR PAPER
Type your title in upper and lowercase letters centered in the upper half of the page. APA
recommends that your title be no more than 12 words in length and that it should not contain
abbreviations or words that serve no purpose. Your title may take up one or two lines. All text on
the title page, and throughout your paper, should be double-spaced.
Beneath the title, type the author's name: first name, middle initial(s), and last name. Do not use
titles (Dr.) or degrees (Ph.D.).
Beneath the author's name, type the institutional affiliation, which should indicate the location
where the author(s) conducted the research.