What verb tense for course descriptions?

[cintinative]

Ugh. Mine are all over the place because some are copied from the provider's website and modified and some are not.

Is past tense okay?

Also, how critical is it that all my course descriptions read very similarly?  I feel like if there was a magic formula for the paragraph description, I threw it aside and forged my own road. Will the lack of consistent language be off-putting?

[Farrar]

Lol. I've now edited a ton of these for clients and I still second guess it. I tend to use past tense just because so many of the courses that homeschoolers use are one offs. It's weird to be like, this course will do this when the course will never do anything again. It was designed for a single student and is now done forever.

I do think using a parallel format helps admissions a good bit. Some course descriptions are going to be a bit different, but realistically some admissions offices pore over these but most give them a skim and being able to read a few, identify that you typically list the objectives, the texts, etc. in a certain way, lets them skim more effectively. That said, I've now seen some dire looking documents. I don't think any of it is a killer.

[cintinative]

19 minutes ago, Farrar said:

Lol. I've now edited a ton of these for clients and I still second guess it. I tend to use past tense just because so many of the courses that homeschoolers use are one offs. It's weird to be like, this course will do this when the course will never do anything again. It was designed for a single student and is now done forever.

I do think using a parallel format helps admissions a good bit. Some course descriptions are going to be a bit different, but realistically some admissions offices pore over these but most give them a skim and being able to read a few, identify that you typically list the objectives, the texts, etc. in a certain way, lets them skim more effectively. That said, I've now seen some dire looking documents. I don't think any of it is a killer.

Thank you! I had no idea of how inconsistent some of them were until I read through them today. Some had future tense, some past, etc. I guess there were some common elements but I realized that if *I* was reading through it, I would find that a bit distracting.  😃 It's good to know that you do this! I might have to have to take a look at it in a year or two!

[Farrar]

To be sure, I've seen them also been all in past tense and that's fine. And seen them clearly all be cut and pasted, which is also fine. Though I find that few providers give a description that's useful for colleges. It's more of a sales pitch most of the time.

[cintinative]

3 minutes ago, Farrar said:

To be sure, I've seen them also been all in past tense and that's fine. And seen them clearly all be cut and pasted, which is also fine. Though I find that few providers give a description that's useful for colleges. It's more of a sales pitch most of the time.

This is what I was struggling with today. The sales pitch part didn't work so I had to try to take the course syllabus and create something intelligible.  😃

[EKS]

I decided on past because it was a description of what we did.  Providers use the future tense because the intended audience is interested in what will be done.

[EKS]

11 minutes ago, Farrar said:

I find that few providers give a description that's useful for colleges. It's more of a sales pitch most of the time.

This is why I used the provider's description as a base and augmented with information in the syllabus and what I knew to be true about the course based on my sons' experiences. 

[daijobu]

I used the verbiage provided by the course instructor or in the textbook description and then lightly edit for consistency.  I used passive voice and most of them read something like this:

AP Statistics
In this course, students are introduced to the major concepts and tools for collecting, analyzing, and
drawing conclusions from data. Students are exposed to four broad conceptual themes: exploring data
(describing patterns and departures from patterns), sampling and experimentation (planning and
conducting a study), anticipating patterns (exploring random phenomena using probability and
simulation), and statistical inference (estimating population parameters and testing hypotheses).
Partner: PA Homeschoolers
Instructor: Carole Matheny
Text: The Practice of Statistics by Daren S. Starnes, et al.

 

The actual course description can be found here.

Sometimes the course descriptions are too sales-y and designed to entice students to take the class.  I slim it down to just the content of the course.  

Edited January 18, 2021 by daijobu

[mom2scouts]

I did all of mine in past tense except dual enrollment courses. For DE, I took the description directly from the syllabus and noted that below the course name.