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 usually occurs before the designer gets involved, and entails correcting errors in the language itself. Some companies now use "proofreading" to mean "basic error correction" and "editing" to refer to a more thorough check that incorporates consistency, flow, etc. At Stickler, we believe it is most beneficial to our clients to offer one straightforward, comprehensive service. Thus, as far as our work for you is concerned, there is no precise distinction between proofreading and copy editing.

What's included: Unlike other proofreading/editing companies, the price we provide to you involves going well beyond a basic spelling and grammar check to ensure that your work is not only consistent, but is organized in the best way possible for maximum clarity and presentability. We reorganize sentences where needed; we also address formatting issues, and ensure the style guidelines provided by your school or target publication (where applicable) are followed as closely as possible. If additional development (e.g., further explanation or supplementary information) is needed on a particular area of the text, we provide helpful comments to signpost how this can be accomplished.

What's not: We are unable to verify the technical content or accuracy of work, and we will not write your work for you or extensively rewrite sections (for academic work in particular, doing so would raise serious ethical concerns).

In short, we believe in preparing your work for publication or submission to the fullest extent possible within our remit, while staying true to your personal style and retaining your voice.

Absolutely! Just send us your style guidelines (via a link or a document) or let us know your formatting requirements, and we will meet these to the fullest extent possible.

Writing from scratch and extensive rewriting is beyond our scope as proofreaders/editors, and, for academic work, would raise serious ethical concerns. Our focus is on making your work as good as possible within our remit—that is, in areas pertaining to the language itself, as written by you.

Our preferred method is credit/debit card processed via Stripe, as this is fast, easy, and available to almost all clients. You do not need a Stripe account to pay in this way—just a credit or debit card—and you can pay in your local currency.

If Stripe is not available to you we can process payment via PayPal, or bank transfer/wire (GBP/USD only). Additional fees may apply. We usually require cleared payment prior to starting any work. However, in certain cases, such as where payments are made by universities, credit terms may be arranged upon request.

There are two reasons why we do not use AI. First, we strongly believe that AI is simply not up to the task yet—as supported by a recent study published in PNAS. While there are some useful AI tools out there that can go some way to preparing text and spotting basic errors, AI is lacking in myriad respects, and its use can lead to egregious errors. Until AI is able to navigate all the complexities of the English language, know when to query unclear or missing information, understand when to leave text alone versus when to make changes, and so on, it will not be able to replace human editors. Second, there are ethical and confidentiality issues surrounding the use of AI for academic work. In particular, feeding your personal work (which is as-yet unpublished and, some cases, contains incomplete or unverified claims or results) into AI would be problematic from these points of view because AI uses this information to learn. We take academic integrity and confidentiality very seriously!

Acceptance by a target publication or passing your assignment depends on a number of factors, including the accuracy of the technical content, the publication/assessment criteria, the relevance of the sources cited, and, in the case of journals, the call for papers in your particular field at a given time and the paper's relevance to the journal. Therefore, we cannot promise that your proofread paper will be accepted or will receive a certain grade.

That said, issues with language and clarity will almost certainly decrease your paper's chances of being accepted by your target publication, or of receiving a passing grade, so having it proofread prior to submission is always a valuable investment.

If you make additional changes to the proofread document, we highly recommend that you 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 you may fail your assignment) due to even minor language issues. If a paper we have previously worked on needs to be re-edited (for example, because changes have been requested by journal reviewers and the paper has been heavily revised), it will qualify for a 30% discount.

Alternatively, you can highlight new sections so that we only focus on (and charge you for) the revisions. If you only have a couple of sentences that need to be checked, we will typically be able to do this free of charge.

Please bear in mind that we are not responsible for errors arising as a result of our changes being rejected, our comments being ignored, or revisions being made subsequent to our editing that are not subject to additional proofreading by us. For this reason, if you make additional changes following our edit it is vital that you have us check any altered or new text, unless you are happy to accept any negative feedback or questions that may arise from your additional changes.

Our changes are suggestions, and your work is your own, so you are of course free to accept or reject our edits as appropriate. However, we do recommend that you exercise caution when rejecting our changes or ignoring comments that we have left on your work. If you are unsure about why we have altered a certain word or phrase the way we have, or aren't sure how to address a comment, please feel free to ask us. We use a wide variety of reference materials, including specialist copy editing dictionaries, style manuals, and writing guides—not to mention our own years of experience—during our edits, and we are always happy to provide explanations behind the changes we have made.

Please bear in mind that we are not responsible for errors arising as a result of our changes being rejected, our comments being ignored, or revisions being made subsequent to our editing that are not subject to additional proofreading by us. For this reason, if you make additional changes following our edit it is vital that you have us check any altered or new text, unless you are happy to accept any negative feedback or questions that may arise from your additional changes.

Our prices are based on the word count of your document. To get an instant quote, please go to our Submit Work form, then enter the word count of your document within the form. Please note that if you require extras, such as our Express Service or Plagiarism Check, additional charges will apply. Once we receive your completed form or query via email, we'll get back to you with a final quote within one working day. We offer a 10% discount on first orders when you sign up to our mailing list. We also offer a 15% discount for referrals by existing clients. Just have your colleague mention your name on submission. They will save 15% on their first order, and you will save 15% on your next one. Finally, high-volume clients that sign up to our Stickler Premier program receive discounts and additional perks on every order.

We are of course happy to edit work in sections as you write them, and send them back to you once we have completed the edit on each section. However, "collaborative" working is not covered by our standard fees, as it is incredibly time consuming and is not an efficient approach for either party (particularly given aspects such as time differences). In line with standard industry practice, if any queries arise during the edit we will add comments to the document in the appropriate places. We try to make these comments as specific and as helpful to you as possible. You can then address them when we return the document to you at the end of the agreed editing period. If you have questions on the comments we have added, or if you would like us to take another look at sentences you have changed in response to our comments, you are very welcome to send the document back to us to re-check. (There is no additional charge for this, provided the changes are minimal and directly relate to our comments. Please see our policy on re-edits (above) for more information.)

Stickler is owned and operated by Jinny Hayman, a formally trained copy editor, English graduate, writer, and language enthusiast who has been in the business since 2004. For more details on Jinny and her background, click here.