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Chapter descriptions: best practices
Chapter descriptions: best practices

Learn the purpose of chapter descriptions and where to find them on DataCamp.

Jess Ahmet avatar
Written by Jess Ahmet
Updated over a week ago

In addition to your course description, each of your chapters must have its own description. Chapter descriptions are shown on your course landing page, just below the course description. This is your opportunity to market your course, so make sure to take advantage of it! Generally, these should be a bit more focused than your course description as they should only cover what's in that chapter. Mention concepts, functions, and datasets, but make it fun, not clinical! 

Style recommendations

  • You just need two to three sentences, 30-60 words, for a great chapter description.

  • To avoid repetition, do not begin sentences with “In this chapter,” or “In this course,”

  • Avoid overly exclamatory statements like “Enjoy!” or “Welcome!” This tone can undermine the professionalism and overall quality of the content.

  • Your tone should be professional and style should be in line with DataCamp’s style guide.

Example

Data Visualization in Spreadsheets’ chapter descriptions are concise and impactful. Each sentence inspires action by beginning with a verb and conveying impact.

Business Intelligence and Using Dashboards: Learn about business intelligence and dashboards for analyzing information in today’s data-driven world. Create a basic dashboard and master setting up your data to get the most out of it.

Efficient Column Charts: Create and format a column chart to showcase data and learn a few smart tricks along the way. Look at using named ranges to refer to cells in your worksheet, making them user-friendly and easy to work with.

Dashboard Controls: A dashboard is like a control panel. Look at ways to allow a user to use this control panel to get different results from your dashboard.

Other Charts for Your Dashboard: A picture paints a thousand words. Look at what types of charts to use in what situation to showcase your data.

Where to put your chapter description

In Teach, hover over the chapter title and a pencil icon will appear. Click on this pencil to enter your chapter description.

Please note that chapter descriptions are written in YAML, not Markdown; therefore you should not include contractions (apostrophes are reserved characters), colons (also reserved), or backticks, as they will not render text as inline code.

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