How to make a cover page for a research paper

There is more to making a cover page than simply writing the title, and here are some tips to guide you:

  • Presentation
  • Font
  • Types of cover pages
  • Presentation
  • The cover page is presenting your paper so it must be worth introducing. Put the title of your paper in about the middle of the cover page and your name at the bottom. This will draw the reader’s eyes to the title and not leave a lot of unoccupied space on the cover page. The title must be perfectly centered and neat, showing that you took the time to make the cover page and did not simply put it haphazardly anywhere on the page. The neatness of your cover page will present the kind of person you are and set the stage for the turning of the page to the paper itself.

  • Font
  • The font you use for your cover page will be bigger than that in your paper. Depending on your topic you can make the font fanciful or very distinctive, italicize it or put it in bold, maybe both. The title on your cover page should be bigger, very eye catching, while your name at the bottom should be in a smaller font and perhaps not bold or italicized. This will show the reader where the focus is, on the title and therefore the subject, on the person who wrote the paper. To make sure you choose the right font for your cover page print off several ideas and get your friends’ opinions on them, taking a vote and then you making the final decision on which one to use.

  • Types of cover pages
  • Before starting on your cover page, ask your advisor which type you are to use as a guide. There are several to choose from and using the wrong one could prove to be a disaster for your paper. There is the Chicago cover page, the APA and the MLA, to name a few. Knowing which one you are to base your cover page off of will be important, and save yourself from having to redo it should it be incorrect. Each cover page does things differently and so the tips on presentation and font may not apply, depending on what is allowed for each type. One type of cover page may restrict you to what font you can use and how big you can make it.

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