Write a course description that shows students what they will study and do
Write a course description grounded in its confirmed focus, material and learning activities, using an original fictional plan-to-description example.
About 4 min read · Allow extra time for the practical checks
Name the course’s focus, explain the questions or material students will encounter and describe the main learning activities accurately. A useful description lets a prospective student recognise the course behind its title. It should not promise experiences, qualifications or outcomes that the actual course does not provide.
Start with the approved course information and the institution’s process for drafting or revising descriptions. Check the intended location, audience and length requirements. A catalogue entry, departmental webpage and section introduction may have different permitted content; do not assume that editing one gives you authority to change the others.
Recover the course before writing the invitation
Gather the confirmed focus, level, principal topics and learning activities. Identify which details are required in this particular description and which belong elsewhere in the syllabus or catalogue. Keep uncertain plans separate from settled information.
The University at Buffalo’s course-description guidance, checked on 3 November 2026, recommends clear language directed to prospective students and an account of the course’s purpose, content and learning activities. Its local length and catalogue-consistency instructions apply in its own setting. Use your institution’s actual requirements rather than importing them as universal rules.
Write down what makes this course distinguishable from a neighbouring one. A broad phrase such as “explores important contemporary issues” could fit many subjects. A checked statement of the material and approach gives students a firmer basis for understanding the course.
Work through an original fictional description
The course, planning notes and proposed wording below are invented teaching material. They are not an approved description, an enrolment offer or evidence of an actual institution’s arrangements.
Imagine a fictional introductory course called Maps and Community Change. Its supplied plan centres on comparing historical maps of a town. Students discuss how mapmakers select and label features, annotate supplied map extracts and write a short comparison. The exercise specifies no field visits, geographic-information-system training or professional qualification.
An attractive but inaccurate draft says:
Discover everything about urban change through exciting fieldwork and become an expert in digital mapping.
The promise exceeds the supplied plan. A description grounded in that plan could say:
Maps and Community Change examines how historical maps represent a town and how their choices of features and labels shape a comparison. Students discuss selected maps, annotate supplied extracts and write a short comparison that distinguishes what the maps show from questions requiring other evidence.
This version identifies material and activities without claiming comprehensive coverage or professional mastery. It also explains an intellectual task rather than merely listing three topics. A real writer must check every part against the actual course record.
| Supplied fictional plan | Appropriate descriptive choice | Unsupported promise to remove |
|---|---|---|
| Historical town maps | Identify the kind of material studied | Coverage of every form of urban change |
| Selection and labelling of features | Name the focus of discussion | A claim that maps are neutral records of everything present |
| Annotation and a short comparison | Describe what students work on | Unspecified field visits or software training |
| Introductory scope | Keep the description proportionate | Guaranteed expert or professional status |
Choose detail for the reader’s decision
Read the draft as someone who has not seen the planning documents. Can that person tell what the course concerns and how they would engage with it? Replace unexplained shorthand with wording suited to the intended audience. Retain a necessary technical term when it identifies the course accurately, but do not use specialist vocabulary simply to make the description sound advanced.
Avoid adding a prerequisite, assessment weight, delivery mode or named tool from memory. Check those details in the authoritative record and place them where the institutional format requires them. A plausible addition can still mislead students if it is not part of the actual course.
Check the final wording against the actual record
Compare the proposed description with the approved information and planned teaching. If an activity is only a possibility, resolve its status before presenting it as a feature students can expect. Follow the relevant review and publication process, keeping proposed text distinguishable from approved text.
The learning-outcome guide addresses a more specific task: stating a capability participants should demonstrate. The teaching-statement guide explains how to write about your own teaching practice and evidence. A course description has a different reader and purpose: give students an accurate preview of the course they are considering.
