How to Head a College Paper (MLA, APA and Chicago)

The MLA block heading

MLA replaces a title page with four double-spaced, left-aligned lines at the top of page one: your name, the professor's name, the course with its section number, and the date written day month year (9 March 2026). One inch down, the title sits centered in the same font and size as everything else, never bolded, italicized, or underlined, followed by the first paragraph after one blank line of space.

Every page after the first carries a header in the top right: your surname, one space, and the page number, created with the word processor's automatic page-number field rather than typed by hand, because typed numbers stop updating the moment your page order changes. The three most common MLA deductions are the missing course section number, an American date written backwards, and a bolded title, and all three take ten seconds each to fix before submission.

The numbers at a glance

Heading elements by style — the range, and where each row actually shows up in coursework. Skim it first; the sections below explain why the range exists and which row applies to you.

The APA 7 student title page

APA 7's student format requires a dedicated title page: the paper title in bold, centered, three or four lines from the top, followed by your name, your department and university, the course number and name, the instructor's name, and the due date, each on its own double-spaced line. A page number goes in the top right corner from page one onward; the student version does not need a running head, which remains a professional-paper requirement.

Title case matters on this page: capitalize the first word, the last word, and every major word of the title, even though the same title in a reference entry would use sentence case. Students migrating from MLA forget the title page exists and stack MLA's four-line block onto APA's page one, which reads as an instant formatting red flag. The title page also counts toward the page numbers, so your body text starts on page two, not page one.

Chicago's title page and the Turabian variant

Chicago style centers a title page with the title a third of the way down, your name several lines below, and course, instructor, and date information near the bottom, all in regular type with generous white space. Notes-bibliography papers then use numbered footnotes for citations, which changes nothing about the heading but changes everything about page layout, since the first footnote shares the first page with your title.

Turabian, Chicago's student adaptation, allows a simpler variant: the same centered information can sit at the top of page one when the instructor prefers no separate title page. Follow the syllabus when it specifies, and default to the full title page when it does not. Chicago's header carries page numbers alone or with a shortened title, positioned top right or centered at the bottom depending on the edition guidance your department follows.

Course-number conventions and the syllabus override

Course lines differ from instructor to instructor in ways no style guide resolves: some want ENG 101, some want English Composition I, some want both plus the section number. The authoritative source is always the syllabus or the assignment sheet, which overrides every general rule on this page. Professors who provide a template are not suggesting it; they are pre-solving the format grade so they can grade content instead.

When instructions are silent, the discipline default applies: MLA for English, languages, and humanities; APA 7 for psychology, nursing, education, and most social sciences; Chicago for history. If the course spans disciplines, the textbook's own format settles it. One habit pays regardless of style: save the correctly headed document as a template file, because the second paper's heading should cost you zero minutes and will, if the first one was built right.

The format check graders run before reading

Graders check mechanics first and content second — a two-minute scan that decides the paper's first impression. The list: correct font and size, double spacing throughout (no stray single-spaced paragraphs), one-inch margins, page numbers in the right corner, the required title-page fields, heading levels used consistently, and references formatted with hanging indents. Each item is trivial; missing two costs measurable points in most rubrics.

Do this scan on the exported PDF, not the working document — export quirks (shifted margins, dropped page numbers, orphaned headings) only appear there. The style switcher below shows the same source formatted in APA 7, MLA 9 and Chicago side by side, which is the fastest way to catch the format you've been half-remembering from the wrong course.