Today we’re going to be introducing the APA Format and discussing how to create a title page.

APA stands for the American Psychological Association. This came about in 1929 after a group fo psychologists and business leaders gathered and created a standard procedure for the formatting of scientific papers.  Much like the late Carl Linnaeus created a standard format for naming a species, this too was done to create a universal, standardized way of communicating information to prevent confusion and make it easier to create, report, read, analyze, review, critique and even translate by agreeing on a formatted style. And this formatting we can begin with discussing the font style which is always times-union and size is 12.

So when you go to create a research paper and look online for APA templates it is important to know there are two main versions, and actually there are many variations of this depending on what specific type of paper you are writing but for our purpose here as a college nursing student, you will most likely want to use the student version. A professional version does exist but the APA style writing is typically reserved for use when someone is looking to publish their research. This lesson is for familiarity of using APA format for turning in college assignments not creating published research. Here you can see two copies of a title page. the one on the left is an example of setting up the title page of the professional type that includes the author’s notes. If you are watching this odds are you are going to model the one on the right.

So here is another copy of that student title page. It includes, of course, the title of your paper centered and about halfway down the page. After that your name as the author or authors if it was a collaborative effort. The third line is the university or affiliation you are attending. The fourth line will have the name and number of the course you are completing the research paper for. Live five will have to include the instructor’s name and beneath that due date of the assignment. You’ll want to set up a header as well. That will include the title of the paper in all caps and the page number.

So in review, APA is a universal standardized format for writing research papers in times roman 12 font. There is a professional and student version. In most cases college assignments can follow the student version. The title page of your research paper needs to have a title page that includes the title of the paper, author’s name, school name, course name and number, professor’s name and assignment due date.

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