Payment Policies
- Pay in advance. No payment, no paper. No exceptions. If you have a very large project and want to pay in installments, I can also send you installments of the edited draft corresponding to the amount you've paid.
- Available methods for online payment include Zelle, PayPal, and Venmo.
- I do not provide any discounts or adjustments to my established rates. Do not ask.
- I do not include free revision edits in my fees: if you revise an already-edited document, I will still charge the same fee to edit the second draft as I would for a completely new document.
- If the place in which you live has government restrictions that limit access to the payment methods I accept (for example, Turkey, Pakistan, and mainland China), I will most likely require you to set up a prepaid credit line before we proceed with your project, since payment issues may otherwise delay projected turnaround times.
- Payments made in installments or split among multiple authors and paid via fee-charging services, like PayPal, are subject to additional fees.
Scheduling Policies
Regarding Rush and Rush Express edits:
- Extremely long Priority papers may be declared Rush at my discretion (usually if they would require editing over 20 pages a day, on average, or if they are coming from a first-time client whose writing I do not know well).
- Rush and Rush Express turnaround times are only available when my schedule allows for them. I also reserve the right to extend Rush and Rush Express timelines when the paper is unusually long (usually >40 double-spaced pages) or the writing quality is so poor that it will require significant extra time to fix.
- Rush and Rush Express projects sent on Sundays, Mondays, and early Tuesdays will usually be subjected to extensions in the timelines due to my solidly booked music studio teaching schedule on those days, which keeps me away from Microsoft Word. For best results, avoid these days of the week when requesting Rush and Rush Express projects.
- Papers sent after 10:00 PM US Central Time (Chicago) will not be received until 9 AM the following morning. Thus, the paper you sent at midnight that's due at noon the following day will actually be Rush Express: 9-10 AM, 10-11 AM, plus 11 AM-12 PM total only three hours.
- Likewise, live editing sessions requested between 10:00 PM Central Time and 8:59 AM Central Time will be charged as if I had received the request at 9 AM the following morning.
- I cannot guarantee rush or Rush Express availability on major American holidays on which I may have musical performance commitments. When I am available, such holiday rush edits will be assessed at the Rush Express rate. Holiday Rush Express requests will be assessed a higher rate (above the typical Rush Express rate) at my discretion.
- If you live outside the Western Hemisphere, you may want to check how your time zone compares to US Central Time before scheduling Rush and Rush Express edits so that you can request the correct turnaround deadline. This website can help.
Live Editing Session Policies
- Live sessions are limited to two hours per day. Emergency situations may be granted if my schedule allows; however, you'll pay the maximum Rush Express rate (currently $100/hour) for additional hours and I will require you to type out the corrections with my verbal guidance to prevent me from injuring my hands.
- First-time clients must prepay for their first live session. Thereafter (and for clients who have purchased remote edits in the past), payment is due at the end of the session, just before we log off.
- Live sessions must take place via Zoom videoconferencing technology. In-person sessions are only available in exceptional circumstances, with my discretion and within the immediate Cleveland area (for example, if a client's profound visual impairment or complete lack of computer access would preclude that client from logging into a videoconference session). Such in-person sessions, when requested, will be billed at twice the posted rate for that turnaround structure.
- Superlative Proofreading Services does not permit or conduct any business by phone. If you need to schedule a live consultation before an editing project, it will need to take place through Zoom and will be billed as a live editing session according to the lead time and session length booked. No exceptions will be granted.
Other Policies
- If you are submitting a paper for a grade, it is your responsibility to make sure that it's OK to have someone else edit your paper according to your class policies. If writing with perfect grammar and mechanics is a big part of the grade, you are most likely not allowed to have someone else correct those things for you. Check with your professor/teacher if you are not sure.
- It is also your responsibility to make sure you are not plagiarizing. I am happy to help you cite your sources properly so you give credit to the authors you are quoting. I reserve the right to report any cases of clear plagiarism in any document I'm editing.
- Non-rush editing turnaround times depend on my schedule and cannot be chosen by the client. Thus, you cannot say "I need this back in 5 days" and choose a non-rush turnaround (you would need to order Priority to guarantee a turnaround within that window). I edit non-rush documents on a "first come, first serve" basis with no exceptions.
- While I strive for absolute perfection in all editing work (and often achieve it), I can’t guarantee that every single paper will be free of minor errors, particularly when the project requires reformatting the document or when the turnaround time borders on rush. I always encourage every client to look through the paper again after receiving the edited draft in case a small error may have been missed.
- During high-demand times, I may work with trusted subcontracting editors to complete your project. If you would like to opt out and not utilize these subcontractors, please note this on your submission form. (Of course, choosing not to use subcontractors will probably increase the turnaround time required to finish your editing project, so keep this in mind if your project is urgent.) On the other hand, if you really love a particular subcontractor and want to request their assistance on your project, I'll do my best to align your schedules and make it happen.
- I do not offer any discounts for proofreading documents that someone else edited first. It's very unlikely that he or she caught everything, and other editors in my former geographic area were forced to close their businesses after realizing they simply couldn't come close to my skill level.
- I do not provide additional grammar assistance or English instruction via email. If you have follow-up questions about a document I have edited or about English language usage more broadly, please request a videoconference tutoring session.
- I will always give my turnaround dates/times in US Central Time (standard or daylight depending on the month). In some cases, I don't even know where my clients live, so despite my seemingly supernatural editing skills, I am not psychic and cannot read your mind to determine your location! :) Thus, if you live outside the Western Hemisphere and turnaround windows may fall on different days for you, please notify me immediately so we can clarify when you will be receiving your edits.
- On rare occasions, during high-volume times like December and May, or with exceptionally long/low-quality documents, I may need to extend the number of days in each turnaround structure. Therefore, "Priority" may become 5-7 days and Rush may become 24-48 hours. Again, this is rare, since my clients are generally not students, but it is worth noting. I will always notify you if this is the case so you can choose the turnaround that best fits your needs.
- Make sure you send me the correct file that you actually need to have edited. I do not provide refunds after completing an edit if you realize that you sent me the wrong file. It is your responsibility to make sure that the file you send me is the same file that needs editing!
- If you send an updated draft after I have started editing, you will be charged for both drafts. Thus, you should make sure that the draft you send me for editing is your final draft.
- I can only take Word documents (.doc, .docx, or .rtf formats), text documents (.txt), or .html webpages for editing. I do not have the additional software necessary to make and track inline changes within PDF files. If you use LaTeX, you'll need to book a live editing session during which you'll share the paper with me in Overleaf. I will then complete the edits in Overleaf. The disadvantage in that is that changes cannot be tracked and you will need to rearrange your schedule such that you can log in for the live edit; however, it avoids the formatting issues that can arise when converting math-heavy papers into Word format.
- Please make every effort to combine all documents for the same editing job into a single Word document, particularly if I need to reference multiple areas within the document during the edit (like if you've asked me to make sure your in-text figure citations actually match the figure numbers in the Appendix). Toggling several open Word documents places an additional burden on my computer's processing power and slows down my workflow significantly.
- If you are writing a music theory/musicology paper and are hoping to receive feedback on content, given my background in these fields, please know that I cannot do this as part of a standard edit, particularly with the tight turnarounds I offer. You must schedule a separate tutoring session with me (as your theory professor, not editor) to go over content. I also reserve the right to refuse such an arrangement if I feel the content is outside my specific areas of expertise. To learn more about my music theory scholarship, please visit this page.
- Finally, I ask that, following each editing project, you make a good faith effort to integrate the corrections into your future writing projects so that you may grow in your writing and reasoning skills! Seeing my clients' growth and success is what keeps me going. If you have a learning difference or other circumstance that may affect this writing skill development process, feel free to let me know. I don't require that you reveal these things, but it's helpful for me to know if you have particular difficulty with certain concepts or tasks that come up during the writing and editing process.