diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 7db80e4..bc15e6c 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,24 +1,24 @@
-# README
+# PATS API
 
-This README would normally document whatever steps are necessary to get the
-application up and running.
+This is the code used in 67-272 to teach the basics of building an API.  There are several branches here to demonstrate different aspects of API building.  The branches build in a cumulative fashion, so the order to review these branches is:
 
-Things you may want to cover:
+* basics -- this is the most basic API possible
 
-* Ruby version
+* swagger -- this version is where we document the API with Swagger docs
 
-* System dependencies
+* serializers -- this version does some basic serialization to allow us to generate more interesting JSON
 
-* Configuration
+* adv_serializers -- a more advanced version of the prior branch 
 
-* Database creation
+* cors -- allowing for cross origin resource sharing
 
-* Database initialization
+* filtering -- this version adds flexibility to the API allowing us to filter and order results as needed
 
-* How to run the test suite
+* adv_filtering -- this version refactors the previous branch to reduce some obvious code duplication
 
-* Services (job queues, cache servers, search engines, etc.)
+* auth -- adding some authentication for the API to restrict access
 
-* Deployment instructions
+* versioning -- creating versions of the API
+
+* rackattack -- throttling access to the API to stop excessive usage
 
-* ...