Syllabus

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Syllabus (plural syllabi or syllabuses) is a document with an outline and summary of topics to be covered in a course. It is often either set out by an exam board, or prepared by the professor who teaches the course, and is usually given to each student during the first class session. A syllabus usually contains specific information about the course, such as information on how, where and when to contact the lecturer and teaching assistants; an outline of what will be covered in the course; a schedule of test dates and the due dates for assignments; the grading policy for the course; specific classroom rules; etc.

Within many courses concluding in an exam, syllabi are used to ensure consistency between schools and that all teachers know what must be taught and what is not required. Exams can only test based on information included in the syllabus.

The common plural form syllabi is sometimes considered a hypercorrection, as we do not know that syllabus is a second-declension Latin noun, simply because there are not enough classical uses of the term to definitively discern its declension. If, as the vast majority of Latin nouns ending in "-us", "syllabus" belongs to the second-declension, the plural would be syllabi; if fourth, the plural would again be syllabus. For this reason, syllabi, syllabus, and syllabuses are all commonly accepted. The exact same predicament holds true for the word virus.