How to Request a Reading | Fees, Process & Contact
Crossgrain
A wrong sentence gets noticed. A missing question does not.
For analysts, researchers, applicants, and executives whose work will be judged by others.
You have something to say. On the page, it could have been said by anyone.
After twenty-five years of reading papers and applications, I have seen very different arguments and lives arrive on the page in almost the same form.
Sometimes the structure is so familiar that I know where the work is going before I know what you think.
When the structure arrives before the question, the argument can only ask what the structure already knows how to answer.
So I ask the questions your work has not yet asked.
What to bring
Bring a research statement, grant proposal, paper, or strategy memo you need to put before others.
You have done the good work. You need to show where it leads.
In a research statement, I look for the judgment connecting your work to what you propose next. Many on your committee will read it from outside your specialty, as I do. Can they see why it matters?
For a grant proposal, I examine what the answer would change. An important subject can still leave the decisive question unasked.
You are deciding where to take your company.
I examine who sets the terms and who keeps the gains. Then I ask what success would commit your company to. A larger market can bring more revenue while leaving you with less room to choose.
Bring the strategy you need to put before investors or your board.
You have a recommendation but cannot make the case for it.
I often see a memo show the problem clearly, then recommend only an activity. Connecting the two is left to the reader.
I examine whether your aims collide. If they do, we discuss the choice you have to make.
Your work has been challenged. You do not know what to change.
Under criticism, an author can defend a piece until the claim itself has almost disappeared.
We examine the objection as closely as the claim. Which step does it challenge? What would changing the argument actually resolve?
When your argument holds, we keep it.
Where I read deeper
I read arguments across fields. In four, I also know the terrain:
- Geopolitical Strategy
- Corporate Strategy
- Investment Analysis
- Technology Strategy
I examine whose decisions your explanation depends on, and what your committee, board, or investors must decide if you are right.
I ask what your reader will object to, then what both of you have missed.
If your document turns on technical validity I cannot assess, I will say so.
I do not rewrite your work.
Why I read this way
When I took the GMAT and LSAT in college, my study-group peers could replay whole passages and talk through the questions in detail once the tests were over. I could barely remember what I had read. They sounded so certain that I felt I must have done badly.
Then the scores came back. I was in the 99th percentile on both tests. They had scored much lower. I had simply read the passages and answered the questions.
That bothered me.
I had taken their certainty after the test as proof of how they did during it. It wasn’t.
I read arguments and objections this way. Sometimes “more evidence, please” identifies a real gap in the argument. Sometimes it is what people say when they cannot judge the evidence already there. Telling the difference is my work.
On the Record
My clients’ writing stays private. My own is here.
To see how I respond to someone else's argument, read How I Work Through an Argument.
America's Fifth Round
Infer strategic purpose from decisions that appear to contradict one another.
Nothing to Say
Read a silence by tracing how it was produced.
They Will Be Just Fine
Trace what gets dropped as a claim acquires authority.
What Is Talent?
Identify the judgment a successful performance leaves untested.
The United States of Strawman
Ask what an objection must prove before it can justify rejection.
Commissions
Fee
US$2,000 per project for up to 5,000 words.
US$3,000 per project for 5,001–10,000 words.
Word counts cover the main text of every document in the project, excluding references, bibliography, and appendices.
US$750 per 90-minute strategy conversation, with a written memo from me afterward. For a business strategy, a recommendation, or a decision you are still working through. You need no finished document.
The process
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Email me about the work you would like me to read and what brought you here.
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I reply to let you know whether I think I can help and confirm what I will read.
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If you would like to proceed, pay my invoice by bank transfer and send proof of transfer within two days of my confirmation.
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The clock starts when I confirm your proof of transfer. My analysis arrives within five calendar days for projects up to 2,500 words, seven days for 2,501–5,000 words, and fourteen days for 5,001–10,000 words.
After the analysis
Optional conversation
You may book a complimentary one-hour Google Meet to discuss the analysis. Please book within three calendar days of receiving it.
Optional revision check
If you send a revised version of the same argument within two weeks of receiving my initial analysis, I will read it once more, at no additional charge, to check how you have addressed the points I raised.
Further review
From the third reading onward, each additional written analysis of the same argument costs US$300, payable in advance. This rate applies to written analyses only. Every strategy conversation is US$750, including follow-ups.
Terms
The written-reading fee pays for the initial analysis. The optional Google Meet and revision check are complimentary. If I miss the agreed delivery deadline for the initial analysis, you receive a full refund. If I deliver it on time, the fee is non-refundable.
I do not record our conversations unless you ask. I will sign your NDA.