Terms and Conditions

(1) Introduction

These terms and conditions govern your use of our website and services; by using our website and services, you accept these terms and conditions in full. If you disagree with these terms and conditions or any part thereof, you must not use our website or services. These terms and conditions cover all work undertaken by us, including proofreading and editing (also covers re-edits, any work completed free of charge (e.g. sentence revisions), etc.), translation, addition of document elements, plagiarism checks, and so on.

(2) Scope of services

Proofreading vs. copy editing

Traditionally, proofreading refers to a thorough check of page proofs created by a designer to ensure all style elements are consistent, and that there are no remaining typos or other issues. Editing occurs before the designer gets involved, and entails correcting errors in the language itself.

As far as our work for you is concerned, there is no precise distinction between proofreading and copy editing.

We check documents for errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation and syntax, as well as general consistency and flow. We also format documents to specific guidelines where requested, and check the reference list (where applicable) for completeness and accuracy against the in-text citations. However, we do not verify the content or technical accuracy of the work, and we do not extensively rewrite work or write work for you. In short, our focus is on taking what you have written, and improving its quality from a language perspective to the fullest extent possible.

Following completion of work

We strive to provide complete satisfaction to our customers, and all documents are proofread to a high standard. However, you are responsible for reviewing the edited document upon completion and contacting us should any errors be discovered. We will always correct any outstanding issues with a document upon request (where these appeared in the work originally submitted). We are not obligated to refund the cost of the service in the case of an edited document being less than perfect.

If you are unsure about why we have altered a certain word or phrase the way we have, and would like us to explain, please feel free to contact us. We use a wide variety of reference materials including dictionaries, style manuals and writing guides – not to mention our own years of experience – and we are always happy to provide explanations behind the changes we have made.

If you make additional changes to the proofread document, please send it back to us for a final language check. This is particularly important for journal articles and academic assignments, as you may be asked to improve the English and resubmit the work (or fail your assignment in the case of academic work) due to even minor language issues. Minor revisions will be checked free of charge (provided they are adequately highlighted), and extensively revised documents will be eligible for re-checking at a discounted rate.

We are not responsible for errors arising from changes made after the edit, from recommended changes being rejected, or from a failure to address issues highlighted during the edit via comments.

Please note that if your edited document requires rechecking at a future date (for example, based on feedback from a journal editor), we will gladly check our original edited version again free of charge (please note: this must be our original edit with no additional changes). In order to do so, we will need to merge your submitted document with our original edited document to verify whether changes were made, so please submit both to us when requesting a recheck. If you are unable to supply our edited version of the document, and if more than 12 months has passed (and therefore we have automatically deleted your work from our system), we will be unable to recheck the document for free and the regular re-edit charge (full fee minus 30%—see subsequent paragraph) will apply.

If you have made changes to a document following our edit that you would like us to recheck, or if you are unable to send our edited version, a charge will apply (based on either the full fee minus a 30% discount for us to check the whole document, or charges for your highlighted changes).

(3) Document submissions and returns

We reserve the right to decline any work, for any reason.

We always aim to complete work within the period agreed with you in advance; however, forces beyond our control, or particularly complex pieces of work, may occasionally mean that we are not be able to complete the work within the specified time frame. If this is the case, we will always let you know as soon as possible.

Returned documents

You will usually receive two documents upon completion of the work (applies to Microsoft Word documents only):

• The document with the word "tracked" in the file name displays all of the changes we have made, along with any comments. The changes are highlighted, which allows you to see exactly what we have changed. We recommend that you check each of our corrections carefully, to ensure that they still reflect what you were initially trying to say.

• The document with the word "corrected" in the file name is the fully corrected document, and does not display the individual changes, though comments are still displayed (you can remove comments by right-clicking on them, and clicking "delete comment").

If you have any problems opening your returned document, please just let us know and we will send your work to you in an alternative format.

(4) Our proofreaders and translators

All proofreading work is carried out either by Jinny Hayman (company owner), or by one of our highly trained professional proofreaders (or translators in the case of translation assignments). By agreeing to these terms and conditions, you agree that your document may be worked on by any employee of, or parties subcontracted by, Stickler Inc., where all such parties have been stringently tested prior to starting any work, and are subject to rigorous ongoing quality assessments to ensure their work continues to be at the highest possible standard.

All work is thoroughly quality checked prior to being returned to you.

All parties are required to sign a contract before starting any work. This includes a confidentiality agreement, which stipulates that they are prohibited from disclosing work to any other party, for any reason, and that they must delete your work from their system as soon as it has been completed and returned.

If you would prefer your work to be conducted by Jinny rather than another member of our team, please let us know – we will always do our best to accommodate your request where possible.

Regardless of which member of our team completes your work, these terms and conditions apply in full. This includes our quality promise, privacy policy and confidentiality policy (please see item 5).

(5) Confidentiality

We take intellectual copyright, classified material and other forms of confidential documents very seriously. You retain sole copyright, ownership and control over all materials submitted to us for proofreading. All work is deleted by parties contracted by Stickler upon completion and return. We retain the completed work on our secure server for a maximum of 12 months (in case you have any queries or any follow-up work is needed). After this time it is permanently deleted. If you would prefer that we delete work sooner than 12 months please let us know; however, please bear in mind that re-edits or any related follow-up work may not be possible in this case.

We love feedback. If you say something nice about our work via email or otherwise, we may use this as a testimonial on our website. By agreeing to these terms and conditions you agree to let us use such information in full, including your name, country and institution. However, if you would prefer that we do not use some of this information, please let us know – we completely understand, and we're more than happy to comply.

(6) Payment and discounts

Payment information is sent electronically following our initial confirmed quote. Preferred payment method is via credit debit card (via Stripe or PayPal), or bank transfer/wire, although alternative methods can be accepted. Credit accounts can be arranged for business customers and payments made by universities on request; for all other clients payment must be made in advance of any work being started. The minimum charge for any work is $20.00.

We frequently offer promotional discounts. Discounts cannot be combined, and only one discount is applicable per job. We reserve the right to withdraw or adjust discount offerings at any time and without notice.

(7) User-generated content

In these terms and conditions, “your user content” means material (including without limitation text, images, audio material, video material and audio-visual material) that you submit to our website, for whatever purpose.

Your user content must not be illegal or unlawful, must not infringe any third party's legal rights, and must not be capable of giving rise to legal action whether against you or us or a third party (in each case under any applicable law).

You must not submit any user content to the website that is or has ever been the subject of any threatened or actual legal proceedings or other similar complaint.

We reserve the right to edit or remove any material submitted to our website, or stored on our servers, or hosted or published upon our website.

(8) Limitations of liability

Our liability to you in relation to the use of our website or services under or in connection with these terms and conditions, will be limited as follows:

(a) We will not be liable for any consequential, indirect or special loss or damage

(b) We will not be liable for any loss of profit, income, revenue, anticipated savings, contracts, business, goodwill, reputation, data, or information

(d) We will not be liable for any damages or injury caused by any failure of performance, error, omission, interruption, defect, delay in operation of transmission, computer virus, or equipment failure.

(9) Indemnity

You hereby indemnify us and undertake to keep us indemnified against any losses, damages, costs, liabilities and expenses (including without limitation legal expenses and any amounts paid by us to a third party in settlement of a claim or dispute on the advice of our legal advisers) incurred or suffered by us arising out of any breach by you of any provision of these terms and conditions, or arising out of any claim that you have breached any provision of these Terms and Conditions.

(10) Severability

If a provision of these terms and conditions is determined by any court or other competent authority to be unlawful and/or unenforceable, the other provisions will continue in effect. If any unlawful and/or unenforceable provision would be lawful or enforceable if part of it were deleted, that part will be deemed to be deleted, and the rest of the provision will continue in effect.

If you have any questions on these terms and conditions, please let us know via email: