Title page info on a title page-less paper?

July 7, 2008 10:41 AM

ChicagoManualofStyleFilter: I'm trying to figure out what Chicago dictates (is there even guidance here?) for proper setup of title page info for a short paper of perhaps five pages or less without a title page. That is to say, how does the information that would go on a title page get formatted when one isn't used. Name/date/course/prof/etc., moved to the top of the first page. Can anyone point me to a specific section in the manual? Bonus question: I know what it vaguely looks like (LastName PageNumber), but I'm also looking for specific guidance for last name and page number info in the short paper's header. Thanks!
posted by jroybal to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

Best answer: A quick glance through Chicago (which I use every day, as a copyeditor) confirms my immediate reaction, which is that you're not going to find anything there because it's about books and journals and citations, not formatting student papers. I think you want something like Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations.
posted by languagehat at 11:01 AM on July 7, 2008

Best answer: i don't think chicago has a particular style for this. when i was in college, we always had that stuff in the upper left corner, with the title of the paper centered below that info and above the text.

name
course
professor
date

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> title of your paper (centered)

paper.
posted by thinkingwoman at 11:02 AM on July 7, 2008

thinkingwoman's got it for the first page (I think there are maybe supposed to be spaces between name/course/prof/date). For the header on the rest of the pages, start (on the second page) numbering with YourLastName p.2 and so on. It can go in the upper left hand corner or centered on the bottom.

In my experience, no professor has been strict about the numbering/heading of my (or my classmates') papers, and I went to the school that wrote the book. So don't worry about it too much.
posted by phunniemee at 12:00 PM on July 7, 2008

Speaking as someone who has graded many papers, I second the name-on-subsequent-pages. This, along with actually stapling the pages together (as opposed to folding the corners over like many students tend to do), shows the grader that you care enough to make it easier on someone who is going through 35+ papers...
posted by tractorfeed at 3:33 PM on July 7, 2008