How are your weekly posts and word count calculated?

When you receive your weekly progress emails, we apply a few rules to how we count your posts and words. This article explains those rules so you know what to expect.

Calculating your number of posts.

Not every message you send counts toward your weekly post total, which means the figure we give you may differ from the post count shown in Moodle. We exclude the following:

Introduction posts — Any message where you introduce yourself, or where you respond to a tutor's introduction, is not counted. Bear in mind that this filtering isn't perfectly precise, so your Week 1 figures may be slightly off. Introduction posts are also not marked by your tutor.

Posts under 50 words — Any post below this threshold is not considered a substantive response and will not be counted toward your weekly total. This doesn't mean the post has no value, though — your tutor will still read and mark it regardless.

Calculating your word count.

You may notice a difference between the word count shown on Moodle and the figure in your progress report. This is because we apply the following rules:

References are excluded — You should include a 'References' heading at the end of your post, followed by your reference list. Any words from that heading onwards are not counted toward your total, which keeps this consistent with how we handle our other forms of assessment.

Words in excluded posts are not counted — If a post is an introduction post or falls under the 50-word threshold, the words within it will not contribute to your weekly word count. See the section above for a full explanation of which posts are excluded and why.