Paying for class help.

01What somebody counts when they read your syllabus.

Not the credit value, which predicts almost nothing. What gets counted is the work: how many separate graded things the term contains, how many of them repeat, how much reading each one needs before a word can be written, and whether any of it requires material that only you have.

Those four are the whole basis. A course carrying three credits and a fortnightly discussion can cost less than a one-credit seminar with a weekly journal, and no published card could ever express that. Which is why nobody here quotes before reading, and why the reading is free.

The result comes back as lines rather than a total. Each graded item, priced on its own, so you can look down the column and see exactly what the expensive parts are.

02What actually moves a figure.

In roughly the order they matter, which is not the order people expect.

• Repetition. Anything owed every week is the largest line on most slips, because it is one job done fifteen times rather than one job.
• Reading depth. A paper needing ten sources located, read and used properly is a different job from a reflective piece of identical length.
• Term length. The same weekly obligation costs very different amounts across five weeks and fifteen, which is why the length is asked for early.
• How close the deadline is. Not as a surcharge but as a limit: past a certain point the honest answer is that it cannot be done properly, and the order is declined instead.
• What you keep. This is the one you control, and it moves the figure more than any of the others.

03Why most slips get smaller.

Because the reading usually contradicts the request. Somebody writes in wanting a whole course taken, and the lines show one recurring obligation accounting for most of the hours while carrying a modest share of the mark. Deleting every line but that one settles the real difficulty for a small part of the money.

That happens often enough to be the normal outcome rather than an occasional one. It is also why the slip is itemised in the first place: a single total invites you to accept or refuse, while a column of lines invites you to think, and thinking usually produces a smaller order.

A fair number of people never come back at all, having taken the reading and rearranged their own term around it. Nothing about that is a failure. It is the reading doing its job.

04What you are never asked for.

A subscription, a retainer, a minimum, or anything that renews unless you ask it to. Nothing recurs by default and no notice period exists, so an arrangement stops at the end of whatever week you say stop.

Login details are not requested either. Everything is written outside your courseroom and handed to you as a document. Nothing about the arrangement needs credentials, so nothing is held.

And no grade is ever promised, because nobody controls a marker. Work is built to the top band of the sheet you send, which is a description of effort rather than a guarantee of outcome, and the difference between those two sentences is worth insisting on. The list of what else is declined sits at the page on choosing a house, and the sorting of what you actually need is at the sorting page.

Questions at this desk.

Why is there no price list anywhere on this site?

Because the number depends on what you decide to keep, and that decision has not been made when a list would be read. A slip is built from your syllabus into lines you can remove. One headline figure would describe a whole course, and almost nobody here buys a whole course.

Does asking for a slip commit me to anything?

No. The reading is free, nothing is owed for it, and a good proportion of the people who request one never order afterwards, having used it to rearrange their own term. There is no follow-up sequence and nobody will chase you about it.

Is a rush more expensive?

A near deadline is a constraint here rather than a surcharge. Where room remains to do the work properly it is quoted as normal. Where it does not, the order is turned down instead of accepted at a premium and delivered thin, which is the version that costs you most in the end.

Can I pay for part of a term and then decide?

That is how most arrangements here run. Take one component or one fortnight, see what it does to your week, and widen later if it helps. Widening never re-prices what is already under way, so beginning small costs you nothing except the time it takes to decide.

What if I cannot afford the whole thing?

Say so plainly on the slip and it will be built around the constraint rather than around the ideal. Frequently there is a smaller version that solves most of the problem: one component instead of a course, or the fortnight where two courses collide instead of the whole term.