Terms of Business

Editing

1. We undertake to ensure that no manuscript edited by a member of Humanities Editing' staff will be rejected by a journal editor or reviewer, or by a book reviewer, on the grounds of deficiencies in English language.
2. If authors have special requirements with respect to English, these must be specified in advance. If they are not specified in advance, Humanities Editing will take no responsibility for satisfying them and revising the manuscript in order to satisfy them will incur an additional fee at the standard rates.
3. If authors have special requirements with respect to English, satisfying them may be charged at a rate greater than the Humanities Editing standard rates, depending on the precise nature of the special requirements.
4. If a manuscript that has been edited by a member of Humanities Editing's staff should be rejected on the grounds of deficiencies in English language, Humanities Editing undertakes to remove the deficiencies free of charge, provided that (a) Humanities Editing has access to reviewers' comments and (b) the reviewers' comments specify, in appropriate detail, the ways in which the manuscript is deficient with respect to English language. See www.humanitiesediting.com/complaints.cfm for our procedures for handling complaints.
5. Upon receipt of a revised version of a manuscript, the author should go through the manuscript carefully to address all changes, suggestions, and comments, then return the revised manuscript to Humanities Editing for checking. This checking will be charged at £42.96 per hour. Checking is very important, because we have found that in many cases, authors introduce errors into their manuscripts when they are revising, which can result in the manuscript being rejected on the grounds of poor English.
6. Humanities Editing takes no responsibility for any submitted manuscript that contains changes made by the client following the completion of editing and that has not been returned to Humanities Editing for checking.
7. Humanities Editing does not edit theses or dissertations that are to be submitted for a degree, e.g. for an MSc or PhD. This is because in almost all cases, correcting the English requires the elimination of unclarity and ambiguity, which is in contravention of university regulations, which state that theses should be clearly written and be the product of all the student's own work.

Assessment of logic and flow of argument

1. For a work that has yet to be submitted for publication, Humanities Editing does not guarantee to remove all possible logical error and deficiencies in the flow of argument. We do guarantee to make improvements to the existing work that are consistent with the time spent on our analysis.
2. For a manuscript that has already been submitted to a journal and has reviewers' comments available, Humanities Editing undertakes to rectify those deficiencies in the manuscript that have been identified by the reviewers and that pertain specifically to logic and the flow of argument.
3. If a manuscript that has been assessed for logic and the flow of argument is rejected by a journal editor or reviewer, or book reviewer, on the grounds of deficiencies in the area of logic and the flow of argument, Humanities Editing undertakes to remove the deficiencies free of charge, provided that (a) Humanities Editing has access to reviewers' comments, (b) reviewers' comments specify, in appropriate detail, the ways in which the manuscript is deficient with respect to logic and the flow of argument and (c) the deficiencies pertain only to those portions of the text that have been modified regarding logic and the flow of argument by Humanities Editing staff.

Scientific Content

1. Under no circumstances will Humanities Editing take responsibility for the scientific content of a manuscript.

Acceptance and Return of Manuscripts

1. Humanities Editing will accept a manuscript for editing only if authors either (a) submit their manuscript by completing, in full detail, the online form at www.humanitiesediting.com/submit.cfm, during which process they will commit themselves to editing, or (b) submit their document by e-mail, supplying all of the information that is asked for on the online form, including a statement of commitment to editing.
2. Humanities Editing will return a revised version of a manuscript of up to 8000 words that is to be edited for English within 14 days of sending to the author an acknowledgement of receipt of the manuscript, unless there are extenuating circumstances, in which case Humanities Editing will inform the author of these circumstances as soon as they become known.
3. Humanities Editing will return a revised version of a manuscript of up to 2500 words that is to be edited for English within less than 14 days of sending to the author an acknowledgement of receipt of the manuscript, provided that a lesser period is agreed with the author.
4. For manuscripts of over 8000 words, a return date will be agreed between Humanities Editing and the author.
5. For manuscripts such that the author requests special services in addition to the editing of English, such as editorial advice and/or the assessment of logic and flow of argument, there can be no set completion date. However, a schedule of work will be agreed between Humanities Editing and the author.

Cancellation

1. Humanities Editing sends manuscripts to editors for work to start at the same time that Humanities Editing sends out to authors an acknowledgement of receipt of the manuscript. This will usually be within 24 hours of receiving a request for editing. If an author cancels editing before Humanities Editing has sent out an acknowledgement of receipt of the manuscript, there will be no charge.
2. If an author cancels editing after Humanities Editing has sent out an acknowledgement of receipt of the manuscript but before first editing has been completed, the charge will be the cost of doing first editing on the entire manuscript at a rate of GBP4.29 per 100 words, plus a surcharge of 15%.
3. If an author cancels editing after first editing has been completed and before Humanities Editing has sent the paper out for quality control, the charge will be the cost of doing first editing on the entire manuscript at a rate of GBP4.29 per 100 words, plus any surcharges that apply according to the fee scale specified at www.humanitiesediting.com/fees.cfm.
4. If an author cancels editing after first editing has been completed and after Humanities Editing has sent the paper out for quality control, the charge will be the cost of doing first editing on the entire manuscript calculated according to the fee scale specified at www.humanitiesediting.com/fees.cfm, plus the cost of doing quality control on the entire manuscript at a rate of GBP2.13 per 100 words, plus a surcharge of 15% on the cost of quality control.
5. If an author cancels after all editing has been completed but before Humanities Editing has returned the revised version to the author, the charge will be the full cost of editing calculated according to the fee scale specified at www.humanitiesediting.com/fees.cfm.
6. If any effort is required by Humanities Editing to collect payment that is due as a result of the cancellation of editing by a client, the client will be liable to pay a fee for the effort expended at a rate of £42.96 per hour.
7. If Humanities Editing is unable to complete the editing within either 14 days or a period previously agreed upon between the author and Humanities Editing, the author may cancel and the charge will be the cost of editing that has been completed at the time of cancellation.
8. In all cases of cancellation, Humanities Editing will return to the author a copy of the manuscript that has been revised up to the point at which the request to cancel was received, after the cancellation fee has been paid.

Terms of payment

1. Payment is due as soon as Humanities Editing sends out an invoice to the client.
2. Humanities Editing expects payment to be made by personal credit card or personal bank transfer within 7-10 days of sending out an invoice to the client.
3. Humanities Editing expects to receive payment by the university or any grant body within 30 days of sending out an invoice to the client.

Late payment

1. In the event that payment is not received within 30 days from the date on which an invoice has been sent out to the client, the client will be liable to pay further charges for late payment as follows:
   ----Interest at 5% of the total invoiced amount for days 31-60, levied on day 31, and additional 5% simple interest on the total invoiced amount for every 30 days thereafter.
   ----A fee for effort expended during the course of attempting to receive payment, charged at £42.96 per hour
   

Miscellaneous

1. Humanities Editing reserves the right to change the fees in response to changing economic circumstances, without notification to clients.
2. The fees that apply will always be those that are posted on the webpage www.humanitiesediting.com/fees.cfm.
3. Any issue that arises that is not covered by any of the above will be dealt with on a case by case basis.
4. The final interpretation of any of the above lies with Humanities Editing.