With more than 14 years of preparation, the author thought he knew how to write a syllabus--until he moved to Missouri. Having spent the previous nine years next door in Illinois, first as a graduate student and then as an adjunct (both at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), the author never noticed that his neighbors in the Show Me state took syllabi so seriously. The author got wind of his syllabus deficiencies the day before his first classes were to meet at University of Central Missouri (UCM). The syllabi were already printed when a senior colleague came by to make sure he had included the requisite policy statements for each. In this article, the author shares his experience learning the requirements for specific wording that need to be present in the syllibi to meet the requirements of the state.