Title page & Abstract

Title Page

The title page is the 'first impression' you give your marker. Thus, a good title page that follows APA guidelines is bound to make a good first impression. In APA Style you don't need fancy title pages, you just need to provide all the essential information.

Your title page should include:

a running head,
page number,
Title of the Research Report (note in bold and title case),
your name and student number,
university,
subject code and name,
lecturer's name,
word count,
and turnitin score,
academic Integrity declaration.

A Word template for this title page can be found here.

Title page example APA Style 7th edition_research report.pdf

Tips when writing your title

The title should concisely summarise the main topic of the report and identify the key variables being investigated.

Do not use an emotive or journalistic style
Do not use abbreviations in the title
Do not use redundant words, such as “A study of…” or “An investigation of…”
Titles for experimental designs often take the form of “The Effect of X on Y”
- Example: The effect of a self-esteem manipulation on children’s academic performance
Titles for non-experimental designs often take the form of “The association between X and Y”
- Example: The association between self-esteem and children’s academic performance

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Abstract

The abstract follows the title page on a new page headed by ‘Abstract’ as a Level 1 heading (see levels of headings page). This section provides a snapshot of your report in about 150-250 words relative to the size of the paper. Usually, the abstract is the first, and sometimes the only thing that is read, so it needs to have all the important details of the research (but not every minute detail [e.g., you would not include how you constructed specific materials, but you would include how you administered them]). The abstract is not a composition of selected sentences from the report but rather it conveys the essential elements of the report (See Figure 1 below). As a general rule, an abstract includes background to the research area, research question, rationale, detailed methods, main results, implications/ limitations of the results, and conclusions. A good abstract is:

Accurate: it conveys the purpose and content of the study accurately and the main areas of the report (e.g., rationale, methods, results, implications).
Evaluative: it reports what is in the paper but does not evaluate it.
Coherent and readable: it uses verbs not nouns, active not passive voice, and past tense to describe what you did and present tense to describe results or conclusions.
Concise: it is brief and avoids superfluous statements/words.

The APA Style blog provides additional guidance via.

Figure 1. Information that should be included in your abstract

Next: Introduction

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