This Policy applies to all students
Purpose
This policy sets out the University’s position on proofreading, including the use of professional third-party proofreading or editing services, in relation to any form of coursework (e.g. essays, reports, dissertations, theses etc.) submitted for both formative and summative assessment.
Key Principles
- Students are expected and encouraged to proofread their work and develop the necessary skills to do so, and are supported by the University to do this.
- The University does not permit the use of professional third-party proofreading services for taught undergraduate and taught postgraduate students (unless specifically approved by the University for defined purposes, e.g. recommended by Disabled Students Allowance (DSA); postgraduate research students have further guidance below.
- All students must declare upon submission of each assessment that their work is their own and is submitted in compliance with this policy.
- Students must abide by the definitions and responsibilities set out in this Policy, and ensure that any proofreaders used are aware of these requirements.
Definitions
Editing and proofreading are essential final stages of the writing process.
Editing is defined as any material amendment to the presentation of text which exceeds proofreading, as defined below. It also includes any alteration which substantially changes, corrects, expands or condenses the academic content of the work. Editing involves reviewing the content of the text to ensure that ideas and concepts are clearly and logically expressed and that the text is both meaningful and coherent. Editing may be small scale or substantial in nature and can completely alter the content and meaning of the final work. Editing should be undertaken by the student, in conjunction with their academic supervisor.
Proofreading is defined as “the careful reading of a yet to be finalised document, to detect any errors in spelling, punctuation, grammar, formatting, and layout in the text”.
A proofreader may:
- Identify spelling and typographical errors;
- Iidentify any errors in punctuation;
- Identify poor grammar such as tense use, verb form and sentence structure and/or word order;
- Highlight clear vocabulary errors;
- Highlight unclear syntax/sections of text which appear ambiguous to the reader;
- Indicate inconsistencies in the layout of the document such as use of headings, referencing conventions, etc.
- Highlight repeated phrases or words.
An undergraduate or taught postgraduate student is NOT permitted to use a proofreader to:
- Write an essay or any other type of written assignment for a student;
- Physically edit, change or rewrite any part of a student’s work or contribute any additional material to the original so that the original errors are not visible; handwritten notes or the “comments” function in word processing software should be used;
- Correct mistakes where the original intended meaning is not clear; instead, they should inform the student that the meaning is unclear;
- Translate the work;
- Offer advice about what to add or leave out of the work;
- Reorganise paragraphs;
- Correct factual errors or mistakes in calculation, formulae or computer code;
- Re-label diagrams, charts or figures;
- Correct or reformat references.
Professional third-party proofreading (or editing) services: any professional and/or external third-party service contracted by the student to make changes and/or improvements to their work; use of such services is considered academic misconduct.
*Please note a proof reader is different from a proof reading service. Undergraduate and postgraduate taught students are not permitted to use third-party proof reading services.
Specific guidance for Postgraduate Research students is below.
Further definitions
Paraphrasing and grammar software: online programmes and tools that offer help with writing style through suggesting and/or making changes to grammar and wording (whether to improve style or avoid plagiarism); while the use of basic spelling and grammar checkers (e.g. in Microsoft Word) is permissible, extreme caution should be taken with more sophisticated tools as use of these may result in poor academic practice and/or academic misconduct.
Translation software: online tools that can translate chunks or large amounts of text from one language to another; such tools should not be used to translate large portions or full pieces of work as such use may result in poor academic practice and/or academic misconduct.
Contract cheating/commissioning: businesses (sometimes known as essay mills) and/or individuals or systems that allow commissioning of an original piece of work (essay, coding solutions, etc.); this is considered to be academic misconduct and can result in serious penalties.
Artificial intelligence (AI) tools/systems: the University’s Academic Misconduct Procedure lists, as an example of academic misconduct, unacknowledged material produced using generative AI (artificial intelligence) systems.
Academic Misconduct
Information regarding academic misconduct, can be found in the University’s Academic Misconduct Procedure
1.
Students are expected to thoroughly read their own work to ensure that typographical, grammatical and spelling errors are avoided in final submitted assessments. Study Skills support, including sessions and resources on proofreading, is available from the Centre for Academic Success.
As part of the teaching process, academic staff should also demonstrate to students how to edit, proofread and refine coursework effectively. This may involve explaining the specific requirements of a given type of written work, demonstrating techniques to improve a specific piece of writing, and providing effective feedback, to help students understand the writing process and expected standards of any final submitted work.
2.
The University does not permit the use of professional third-party proofreading services for students pursuing taught programmes (unless specifically approved by the University for defined purposes, e.g. as a reasonable adjustment).
The University will provide study support for students fairly and equitably in both English and Welsh to enable students to develop the skills to edit and proofread their own work effectively, and/or ensure that reasonable adjustments are in place where required.
The University does not permit the use of professional third-party proofreading or editing services, including online services such as paraphrasing and grammar software unless recommended by Disabled Students' Allowance. The use of these proofreading or editing services may not only give a student an unfair advantage over other students, it can also expose students to risk through their work being used, copied or stolen by another, resulting in detection by text matching software on submission, and exploitation from Essay Mills (see earlier definition of Contract cheating/commissioning).
Use of professional third-party proofreading services could result in an investigation of Academic Misconduct, which may result in their work being awarded a fail.
3.
The responsibility for proofreading student work prior to its submission for assessment rests with the individual student as author. However, the University recognises that proofreading is a mechanism for supporting and enhancing student learning and may also be a reasonable adjustment for some students with specific support requirements under the Equality Act 2010.
When a student on a taught programme submits work for assessment, they must make a declaration of academic integrity on each assessment submission ‘cover sheet’, which asserts that they are the sole author of the work unless otherwise stated.
All students must adhere to this Policy, and in all cases, must retain authorship of their work. Failure to adhere to this Policy may result in an investigation in accordance with the Academic Misconduct Procedure, in particular Section 3.
4.
Students must abide by the definitions and responsibilities set out in this Policy, and ensure that only permitted proofreaders are used and should be made aware of these requirements.
Guidance on Generative Artificial Intelligence for Taught students can be located here:Artificial Intelligence Guidance - Swansea University and guidance on Generative Artificial Intelligence for Postgraduate Research students can be located here: AI Guidelines - Swansea University
Specific Guidance for Postgraduate Research Students
Given many postgraduate research students produce a thesis that is of a required length and publicly available, they are permitted to use third-party proofreading services. Students must inform their supervisors that they will be using a third-party proofreading service when the thesis is submitted and ensure that the service does not share the work further. Third-party proofreading services can be used within the following rules:
The proofreader can be used for:
- Identifying spelling and/or typographical errors.
- Identifying poor grammar, such as tense use, verb form, sentence structure and/or word order.
- Identifying formatting errors or inconsistencies.
- Identifying spelling or grammar errors for diagrams, charts and/or tables.
- Highlighting sentences where the wording is overly complex or is unclear. The proofreader should not alter the sentence or paragraph but identify where there is an issue.
- Draw attention to repeated phrases or words.
- Identify typographical errors in referencing.
The proofreader should not do the following:
- Suggesting, changing or editing of the substantial content of the thesis - so for example, changing the interpretation of a concept, or how a finding is described, or how a claim or conclusion is put across.
- Changing any words except for correcting spelling and typographical errors in the prose.
- Rewriting of code, formulae, or equations.
- Rearranging of text.
- Contribution of additional material.
- Re-drawing or re-labelling of graphs, charts, tables or any data/information visualisation.
- Alter an argument.
- Add or change references in terms of their content.
- Translation of text from one language to another when written by the student for their thesis
This policy has been reviewed in line with the revised QAA Quality Code: Assessment published in November 2018; revised August 2021 and the UK Quality Code for Higher Education Principle 11 – Teaching, Learning and assessment published in June 2024.
QAA Resources: “Stop! Don’t Just Submit it, 20 Top-tips for Self-proofreading, created by students for students” 86728-a3-poster-prf4.pdf