Course Formatting Guidelines

The following is a listing of basic course formatting guidelines. Additional details can be found in the longer write-up for each field described in this help wiki.


Course Titles

  • Curriculum and Semester course titles should be in upper and lowercase letters.
  • SIS Short Titles must be in all capital letters (40 character limit).
  • The use of special symbols (other than parentheses, quotation marks, commas, colons, and ampersands) should be avoided.
  • Use Roman numerals in sequencing, not Arabic. Examples include Calculus I and Calculus II.
  • As part of the official transcript that may be reviewed by other institutions and prospective employers, titles should be easily understood by the general public and not embedded with departmental or university jargon.

In most cases the Semester and Curriculum titles are exactly the same. However, Semester and Curriculum titles can be different. For example, there are topics courses where the topic in a particular discipline may change from offering to offering (semester to semester). With topics courses, the Curriculum level title should be purposely broad. For example, at the Curriculum level, a topics course may be titled, “Topics in English Literature:.” When it’s time for this course to be offered in a particular semester, it should have a more specific Semester course title related to the semester’s topic. An example of a Semester title is, “Topics in English Literature: Shakespeare’s Tragedies.” When it is time for “Topics in English Literature:” to be offered in another semester with another topic, the Semester level title is again changed to reflect the new topic (e.g. “Topics in English Literature: Shakespeare’s Comedies”). The Curriculum title should always remain the same (“Topics in English Literature:”) and should not change each time the semester topic changes.

Note: WU transcripts print the Semester titles for all courses that have been entered into WUCRSL since it was launched 1995. The SIS Short Title will print on transcripts for courses taken prior to the birth of WUCRSL.

Course Numbers

  • Course numbers may be 3-4 characters in length and may include at least one letter (although letters are not necesssary).
  • Letters used in course numbers must be capital letters.
  • Course numbers with three characters should not contain a letter (the exception is for courses a dean’s office may create for transfer credit courses).
  • The typical numbering convention for course numbers with letters is that the letters are the 4th and final character (examples include 100B, 308D, 494W).
  • The first digit of the three or four digit course number indicates the level of the course:
    • 1XXX = First Year Level course
    • 2XXX = Sophomore Level course
    • 3XXX = Junior Level course
    • 4XXX = Senior Level course
    • 5XXX = Advanced Undergraduate course/Graduate Level Course
    • 6XXX – 9XXX = Graduate Level course

Course Descriptions

  • Course descriptions should be in upper and lowercase letters (standard sentence case).
  • There is no need to indent paragraphs because the online display will not display paragraph indentation.
  • Do not include references to the number of units or crosslistings in course descriptions, unless special explanation is necessary.
  • Do not include references to dates and times in Curriculum course descriptions.
  • WUCRSL does not support additional formatting like you might find in standard text editors. You cannot bold, italicize, or underline.
  • WUCRSL does not support the addition of accent marks or international characters.

Abbreviations

  • Course descriptions and titles should not contain abbreviations for words like Introduction, Seminar, etc.
  • “Prerequisite:” and “Corequisite:” should be spelled out completely (no hyphens).

The Bulletin

  • The Bulletin is the catalog of programs, degree requirements and pertinent university policies for students earning a degree at Washington University in St. Louis.
  • If you are a Bulletin page owner or approver and need more information about the editing process and CourseLeaf CAT software, visit the Bulletin User Guide. Please note that you will be asked to log in using your WUSTL Key.