Overview
Most universities allow students to get help with spelling, grammar, punctuation and referencing consistency, but draw a firm line at anything that changes the content, argument or structure of assessed work. Some modules go further and ban all third-party editing, and some require a declaration. We ask which rules apply to you before we start, and we set the editing level to match rather than applying one standard pass to every document.
Within those limits, we work through your essay, report, reflective log or case analysis sentence by sentence. Corrections are made in Microsoft Word's Track Changes so you can accept or reject each one; anything that touches meaning is raised as a comment or query, never silently rewritten. Where an error repeats (comma splices, tense shifts, missing page numbers in quotations), we explain the pattern once so you can fix it yourself next time.
You receive the edited file, a clean copy if your rules permit, and a short note summarizing the main patterns we saw. The goal is a submission that reads clearly and presents your own thinking without distracting errors — and a writer who makes fewer of those errors in the next assignment.
Who it’s for and the problems it solves
This is for you if you are…
- Undergraduate and taught master's students submitting essays, reports, reflective pieces or case analyses
- Students writing in English as an additional language who want their meaning to come through clearly
- Students whose tutor feedback keeps mentioning 'proofread carefully', 'referencing errors' or 'unclear expression'
- Returning or part-time students unsure of current academic conventions such as APA 7 or Harvard referencing
- Senior secondary-school students with non-assessed or practice pieces (programs such as the IB restrict outside editing of assessed components, so we check first)
Common problems we help with
- You have finished the essay but no longer see your own typos and repeated words
- Tutor feedback marked you down for 'presentation' or inconsistent citations
- Your sentences are grammatical in your first language's logic but read awkwardly in English
- You are unsure whether your university allows proofreading at all, or what it must be limited to
- The reference list mixes styles because sources came from different databases and generators
What’s included — and what isn’t
Included
- A check of your institution's or module's proofreading policy before we edit, and an editing level agreed accordingly
- Correction of spelling, grammar, punctuation, typos and word-choice errors in tracked changes
- Consistency of spelling variety (US or UK), capitalization, numbers, abbreviations and terminology
- Queries (as comments) where a sentence is ambiguous, rather than rewriting its meaning
- Referencing consistency check against your required style: in-text citations match the reference list, and entries follow the format
- Presentation check against your assignment brief: headings, page numbers, word count reporting, cover page elements
- A short feedback note on recurring language patterns with examples from your own text
Not included
- Writing, rewriting or adding content, arguments, examples or sources — the ideas and wording choices remain yours
- Restructuring the essay, reordering paragraphs or changing your thesis statement in assessed work
- Editing work where your module prohibits third-party help, or editing exam and take-home test answers during the assessment
- Paraphrasing text to reduce a similarity score
- Checking whether your sources actually say what you cite them for (see citation audit services instead)
What you receive
- Tracked-changes file
- Your Word document with every correction visible, so you decide what to accept. Google Docs suggestions mode is available on request.
- Comments and queries
- Margin comments where meaning is unclear, a citation is missing, or a sentence could be read two ways, phrased as questions for you to resolve.
- Pattern note
- A short summary of the three to five most frequent issues in your writing, with the rule and a before/after example taken from your text.
- Editing record
- On request, a brief statement of what type of editing was done, useful if your university asks you to declare or acknowledge proofreading.
How it works
Send brief and rules
You upload the draft, assignment brief and any proofreading policy or declaration form. We confirm the permitted editing level and turnaround.
Language and consistency pass
We edit sentence by sentence in tracked changes and log recurring patterns as we go.
Referencing and presentation pass
We check citations against the reference list and the required style, then the layout against your brief.
Final read and return
A final read catches errors introduced by earlier changes. You receive the files and the pattern note, and can ask questions about any edit.
What we check, and how
- Sentence-level grammar
- Subject–verb agreement, article use (a/an/the), tense consistency across literature and findings, run-on sentences and fragments — common in essays drafted quickly.
- Academic register
- We flag contractions, informal phrasing and unhedged claims ('this proves') and suggest the conventional alternative, leaving the claim itself unchanged.
- Citation matching
- Every in-text citation is checked against the reference list for name spelling, year and presence; orphan entries in either direction are flagged.
- Style conformity
- Reference entries are corrected to your required style — commonly APA 7, MLA 9, Harvard (Cite Them Right or your university's own version) or Chicago.
- Brief compliance
- Word count convention (what counts and what does not), heading requirements, line spacing and font as specified in the brief.
What 'proofreading allowed' usually means at universities
Policies vary, but a common pattern — seen in UK, Australian and New Zealand university guidance — is that a third party may correct spelling, grammar, punctuation and referencing format, and may point out unclear passages, but may not add content, rewrite sections, restructure the work or correct factual or calculation errors in assessed work. Some institutions also ask students to keep the original draft or acknowledge the help.
Because these rules differ between universities and even between modules, we treat your policy as the scope of work. If the rules are silent, we default to a conservative level: corrections to language and referencing in tracked changes, and questions rather than rewrites for anything else.
- Usually permitted: spelling, grammar, punctuation, formatting and referencing consistency
- Usually permitted as comments only: unclear sentences, repetition, possible gaps in citation
- Usually not permitted: rewriting arguments, adding content, restructuring, fixing factual or numerical errors
Different coursework, different editing checks
An argumentative essay needs signposting and paragraph topic sentences that stay clear after editing; a lab or technical report needs consistent units, variable names and passive or active voice as your department expects; a reflective piece written with Gibbs or Kolb uses the first person on purpose, so we do not 'correct' it into impersonal prose. A business case analysis may have tables and appendices that need consistent numbering and cross-referencing.
We read the brief to understand the genre before editing, which avoids the most common failure of generic proofreading: turning your writing into something your marker did not ask for.
Learning from the edit, not just accepting it
Clicking 'Accept all' is tempting before a deadline, but it leaves the same errors waiting in the next assignment. Our pattern note picks out your most frequent issues with a short explanation and an example from your text. If you want deeper support with structure and argument — which editing may not provide in assessed work — academic writing coaching or essay feedback sessions are the right route.
What the work can look like
Illustrative example — fictional data
A 3,000-word marketing essay edited within a 'proofreading only' policy
An illustrative second-year business student (a fictional case) submits a 3,000-word essay on brand loyalty with 24 sources in Harvard style. The module handbook permits proofreading for language and referencing but prohibits changes to content.
What the edit found
About 140 tracked corrections, most of them article use and tense shifts between past and present when describing studies. Eleven comments asked for clarification where a sentence could mean two things. Three in-text citations had no matching reference entry and two references were never cited.
What stayed untouched
The essay's structure, argument and examples were not changed. A paragraph that seemed to contradict the conclusion was flagged in a comment for the student to review, not rewritten.
Pattern note
The note explained the difference between 'Smith (2021) found' and 'Smith (2021) finds' in Harvard-style writing, with two examples from the essay, and listed the three missing references.
Illustrative, fictional example. The number and type of edits depend on your draft and on what your institution permits.
What you’ll need to provide
- The draft in an editable format (Word, Google Docs or a converted file)
- The assignment brief, marking criteria and required referencing style
- Your university's or module's proofreading/editing policy, if one exists
- Preference for US or UK spelling and any terms your tutor wants used in a particular way
- Deadline, allowing time for you to review our changes before submission
You don’t need everything ready to ask for a quote — tell us what you have and we’ll say what’s missing.
What affects price and turnaround
Price depends on
- Word count, including or excluding the reference list and appendices
- Editing level permitted and requested (language only, or language plus referencing)
- How much language work the draft needs, which we assess from a sample
- Referencing style complexity and the number of sources
- Turnaround requested
Turnaround depends on
- Length of the document and the number of references
- Whether you need time to review changes before a fixed submission deadline
- Requests for a second look after you have accepted or rejected changes
Every project is quoted individually. How we price our work.
Questions people ask before starting
Is it allowed to have my essay proofread?
At many universities, yes, within limits — typically language and referencing corrections, not content changes. Some modules forbid it. Send us your policy or handbook section; if it is unclear, ask your module leader. We will not edit work that your rules exclude.
Will you improve my argument?
In assessed coursework, we point out unclear passages and possible gaps as comments, but we do not rewrite or restructure your argument, because that would change who authored the work. For help developing arguments, a coaching session before you draft is the better option.
Can I just accept all your changes?
You can, but we recommend reading through them. Occasionally a correction changes nuance in a way only you can judge, and reviewing the changes is how you learn the patterns. Comments always need your decision.
Do you work in Google Docs?
Yes, using suggestion mode, though Word's Track Changes is more reliable for long reference lists and footnotes. Tell us which you prefer.
Will editing lower my similarity report score?
Language editing does not aim to change similarity scores, and we will not paraphrase to reduce matches. If quotations are unmarked, we flag them so you can add quotation marks and citations.
Is my essay kept confidential?
Yes. Your file is used only for the edit, is not shared or reused, and can be deleted after delivery on request.