Our academic integrity policy

Our position in brief ¶

Academic integrity means the work you submit reflects your own ideas, your own analysis and your own writing. Our services are designed to support that. An editor can make your sentences clearer, a statistician can help you check and understand your analysis, and a coach can help you plan a chapter. The thinking, the arguments, the findings and the authorship remain yours.

This policy applies to every service we offer and to every editor and consultant who works with us.

What we do ¶

• Editing and proofreading of text you have written: grammar, clarity, flow, consistency and style guide formatting such as APA 7.
• Feedback on structure, argument and coherence, given as comments you decide how to act on.
• Coaching and tutoring that helps you plan, write and revise your own work and learn the skills to do it again.
• Data-analysis consulting: advising on methods, running and checking analyses with you, and explaining the output so you can report and defend it.
• Translation and transcription of material you produced or collected.
• Publication support, such as formatting to journal guidelines and advising on responses to reviewers.

Every edit comes back in Track Changes with margin comments, so you and your supervisor can see exactly what was changed and why.

What we do not do ¶

• Write essays, assignments, theses, dissertations or chapters for you to submit as your own work.
• Complete graded homework, quizzes, exams or take-home tests.
• Invent, alter or fabricate data, results, sources or citations.
• Rewrite text in a way that replaces your argument or voice with ours.
• Paraphrase other people's work to disguise its source.
• Sit online exams or log into university systems on your behalf.

How editing and coaching stay within university rules ¶

Most universities allow students to receive proofreading and editing help, often with limits. Many permit corrections to spelling, grammar, punctuation and formatting but restrict changes to content, argument or structure. Some require you to declare any outside help. Rules differ between institutions, departments and even individual assignments.

We work within those limits in practical ways:

• We ask what kind of document you are sending and whether it is assessed.
• We match the depth of editing to what your institution allows, and we can restrict an edit to language and formatting only.
• We raise content questions as comments instead of rewriting your argument.
• Tracked changes give you a clear record of what an editor did.

For statistics, our statistics tutoring and statistics help focus on helping you understand your analysis well enough to report and defend it.

Check your institution's policy and tell your supervisor ¶

Before you send us an assessed piece of work, we strongly encourage you to:

1. Read your institution's policy on proofreading, editing or third-party help. It is often in the student handbook, the graduate school regulations or the academic integrity policy.
2. Check the specific assignment brief, since some modules set their own rules.
3. Tell your supervisor or instructor that you plan to use an editor, and ask if anything is off-limits.
4. Keep the tracked-changes file as a record of the help you received.
5. Declare the help in your acknowledgments or submission form if your institution asks you to.

If your rules allow language corrections only, tell us when you request a quote and we will confine the edit to that.

Requests we refuse ¶

We decline any request where the result would be submitted as the client's own work when it is not. That includes requests to write from a prompt or outline, to "edit" a document that is only bullet points, to complete coursework or problem sets, or to produce a dissertation chapter from notes.

When we decline, we explain why and, where possible, offer an alternative that keeps the work yours: dissertation coaching, structured feedback on a draft you write, or tutoring on the method you are struggling with.

What happens with suspicious requests ¶

Sometimes a request looks acceptable at first and changes later, for example when an editing project turns into a request to add new sections or new analysis. If that happens, the editor pauses and checks with you. If the work would cross the line described above, we do not continue with that part of the request.

We may decline or end a project if a client asks us to fabricate data or sources, to complete an exam or graded assignment, or to disguise the origin of someone else's writing. We handle these situations calmly and confidentially. Our terms of service set out how cancellations work.

Your responsibility as the author ¶

You remain the author and you decide what to accept. You are responsible for the final content of your work, for how you use our feedback, and for following your institution's rules. We are glad to answer questions about whether a service fits your situation before you order. Write to contact@copperplate.cc or see the FAQ.