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Crafting an essay cover page need not be as difficult as it may initially appear. While it is indeed a formal requirement and may take a bit more time when adhering to a specific style guide, the task becomes remarkably manageable with the aid of a well-defined template and a visual example at your disposal. In fact, dedicating just a few minutes of your time to this endeavor can yield a polished and professional cover page.
Utilizing the instructions within this guide, you’ll quickly learn how to write a cover page in APA format, in MLA, and in Chicago format – the three most popular style guides. Each style section will come supplied with clear examples.
What’s a cover page in an essay
You’ve been given an essay assignment with a requirement to include a cover page. This may seem like a deliberate complication of your work – why add a whole new page to an already lengthy essay text? Furthermore, the requirement to use a specific style guide on the cover page can make things look even worse. To figure things out, let’s quickly explain why teachers “love” asking for essay cover pages.
What’s a cover page in an essay anyway? In simple terms, it is a standard way to tell who has done this work, when, what’s the title of the work, and who is the instructor (professor). A cover page speeds up the assessment work of your instructor, and it does so by classifying all submitted essays according to the author, date, and title information. In a sense, a cover page minimizes the chance of human assessment error, while maximizing your chances for success, and helping to make your work stand out from the rest.
A cover page in an essay typically contains the following information:
- Title of your essay;
- Author’s name – your full name;
- Course information – the name of your course, e.g., Political Science;
- Instructor’s name – the full name of your course instructor/teacher;
- Date – the date you submit your essay.
Essay Cover Page Format
To seamlessly integrate the information mentioned above into your essay, it’s crucial to grasp the precise formatting requirements. Each style guide dictates its unique rules concerning font size, type, text alignment, and even line spacing. Therefore, the following subsections will delve into comprehensive explanations and visual examples, highlighting the distinctions in applying specific style guides to your essay’s cover page.
APA style cover page format
APA format cover page follows the standard APA (American Psychological Association) guidelines outlined on the official APA website and in the APA Publication Manual (the latest, 7th edition).
As a general guideline, a cover page of an essay in APA style must be done in 12-size Times New Roman font. All the text on the page must be centered, and use double spacing between the lines.
Here are the exact guidelines for each element of the cover page. You are welcome to use these format guidelines as your go-to APA style cover page template:
Title of the Paper (in bold and title case)
Your Name (first name, middle initial, last name)
Your Institutional Affiliation (if required)
Course Name and Number (if required)
Instructor’s Name (if required)
Due Date (Month Day, Year)
Tip: Make sure that the first two and the very last lines are always present on your cover page. The three middle lines are optional unless they are specifically outlined by the requirements of your essay.
MLA style cover page format
The cover page for essay MLA also follows the latest guidelines specified by the style, in this case as defined by the Modern Language Association. Even though MLA does not usually require a cover page in an essay, it nevertheless does define specific rules for formatting the front page of any paper (including an essay):
Your Name (first name, middle initial, last name)
Instructor’s Name
Course Name and Section Number (if required)
Due Date (Day, Month, Year)
Title of Your Essay (Centered)
Tip: For a perfect cover page in MLA style, keep all lines in 12-size Times New Roman font. Also, all lines except the last, title, line must be aligned to the left side of your page. Bold font, underlining, or italics are not allowed in MLA style unlike the previous APA style, which allowed for the title to be in bold font.
Please note that the Institutional Affiliation information is not stipulated by the MLA style, while all the other data is mandatory, except the course name.
As always, you are welcome to use the above guidelines as your MLA style cover page template.
Chicago style cover page format
Although the Chicago style uses two distinct citation systems (Notes and Bibliography, and Author-Date system), they both stipulate the same formatting rules to be applied to the Chicago style format cover page:
Title of Your Essay (each word capitalized; the whole title centered one-third down the page)
Your Name (distanced by a few lines down the title, the name should be centered as well)
Course Name and Number (if applicable, must be centered)
Date of Submission (centered, but no strict requirements on the format)
Tip: Chicago style cover page template has a simplified version known as the Turabian cover page template, named after a popular (in academic circles) style guide. It is specifically adapted to be used by students and researchers and is available online as the Turabian Manual.
What does a cover page for an essay look like?
Take a look at concrete examples of cover pages done in the three most popular style guides.
APA cover page example
MLA cover page example
Chicago style cover page example
Conclusion
A cover page of an essay carries only the essential information about one’s work. Writing it doesn’t take much time, and having understood how to make a cover page once, you’ll never struggle with this work in the future. However, you should always be on alert to the minor variations in writing, as dictated by the application of different style guides.
We recommend writing a cover page at the very last stage of your work, namely, during the final editing and proofreading, as it’s in your best interest that the information on the cover page is up-to-date and correctly represents your creation.
