Proof Reading

Guidance on Proof Reading

Whilst it is acceptable (indeed laudable) to seek help in improving your English, at the end of the day the work submitted in assignments and dissertations and must be your own and you must be able to defend everything that you have written and demonstrate that you understand it. Assistance with proof reading of your work (by others and GenAI tools such as Grammarly, ChatGPT, etc.) should be limited to the following: 

• Identifying typographical, spelling and punctuation errors; 

• Identifying formatting and layout errors and inconsistencies (e.g. page numbers, font size, line spacing, headers and footers); 

• Identifying grammatical and syntactical errors and anomalies (but NOT rewriting it for you); 

• Highlighting overly long/complex passages where the meaning is unclear; 

• Identifying minor formatting errors in referencing (for consistency and order); 

• Identifying errors in the labelling of diagrams, charts or figures. 

 

The following is NOT acceptable for a proof-reader or GenAI tool to do (directly to your work) unless this is explicitly stated in the assessment brief: 

• Add to content in any way; 

• Check or correct facts, data calculations, formulae or equations; 

• Rewrite content for you where the meaning is unclear; 

• Alter arguments or logic where it is faulty; 

• Re-arrange or re-order paragraphs to enhance the structure or argument; 

• Implement or significantly order a referencing system; 

• Re-label diagrams, charts or figures; 

• Reduce content so as to comply with a specified word limit; 

• Make grammatical, syntactical or stylistic corrections; 

• Translate any part of the work into English 

 

Thus errors you have made in your English can be pointed out to you, but you must correct those errors yourself or this might be considered as academic misconduct.