The title page of a book, thesis or other written work is the page at or near the front which displays its title, subtitle, author, publisher, and edition.
In books
The title page is one of the most important parts of the "front matter" or "preliminaries" of a book, as the data on it and its verso are used to establish the "title proper and usually, though not necessarily, the statement of responsibility and the data relating to publication". This determines the way the book is cited in library catalogs and academic references. The title page often shows the title of the work, the person or body responsible for its intellectual content, and the imprint, which contains the name and address of the book's publisher and its date of publication. Particularly in paperback editions it may contain a shorter title than the cover or lack a descriptive subtitle. Further information about the publication of the book, including its copyright information, is frequently printed on the verso of the title page. Also often included there are the ISBN and a "printer's key", also known as the "number line", which indicates the print run to which the volume belongs. The first printed books, or incunabula, did not have title pages: the text simply begins on the first page, and the book is often identified by the initial words—the incipit—of the text proper.
The title page of a thesis or essay is the work's first page. It lists the title of the work and the name of the author. In the case of an academic paper, the title page also lists class information, identification information, the date, name of the professor, and name of the institution. The title page is not numbered. Title pages are not required in all citation styles; instead, some styles require that the same information is placed at the top of the essay's first page. The title page for a thesis contains the full title, the author's name and academic credentials, the degree-granting faculty and department name, the name of the university and date of graduation, and the universal copyright symbol. The thesis title page is usually page i, but is not numbered; the abstract is the first numbered page.
The title page in video games serves the same purpose, showing the game's name and any appropriate trademark and copyright notices. Some games require the player to press a button or a key to advance past the title page; other games display the title page for a set number of seconds before continuing, or display the title page until the game has finished loading. Video game title pages can be sparse affairs, like those of the Mattel Intellivision in the early 1980s, or can feature artwork and animation.
