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Insight Editing London Editing Service Terms & Conditions – March 2023

These Terms and Conditions apply to single projects undertaken by Insight Editing London on behalf of individual Clients. Additional Terms and Conditions apply to contracted engagements with organizations. By requesting and receiving an email confirming an editing slot booking, the Client accepts and agrees to be bound by these Terms and Conditions. We, Insight Editing London (hereafter IEL), shall provide scientific writing and editing services to you, the Client, in accordance with the following Terms and Conditions:

1. Scope and remit of the service
1.1 Unless otherwise instructed by the Client, IEL undertakes to thoroughly proof-read and correct issues of spelling, grammar, sentence structure, punctuation and phrasing throughout the entire document, with the exclusion of the bibliography, where applicable.
1.2 IEL will provide written feedback on the scientific content of the document to the extent that their experience as general scientists allows. This feedback may include specific suggestions for improvements as well as identifying potential issues with the work.
1.3 In the case of research manuscripts, IEL shall not check that your document meets the formatting requirements of the journal, unless agreed in writing in advance.
1.4 Due to journal regulations concerning authorship IEL is not able to write large sections of new text (including but not limited to the main text, covering letter, and response to reviewers) or to directly modify figures; however IEL shall conduct direct editing of the text and can provide substantive guidance and support to authors in their development of these pieces.
1.5 IEL shall provide a certificate of editing upon request from the Client, which is billable in addition to the cost of editing.

2. Delivery and return of documents
2.1 Editing projects must be booked in advance by email. Short notice editing slots may be available in some circumstances upon request, but could be subject to an additional charge.
2.2 The Client may deliver the draft document to IEL via email attachment or using any free file-sharing platform, for example, DropBox. Delivery of the draft document by the Client to IEL shall be by 09.00h GMT time on the agreed date.
2.3 Should the Client fail to send the document by 09.00h GMT time on the agreed day, IEL is under no obligation to honour their agreement to undertake the work within the previously-agreed timeframe.
2.4 The standard turnaround time is 5 working days (Monday-Friday inclusive) for documents of fewer than 10,000 editable words; however more or less time may be needed. Express editing may be booked upon request, at an additional fee and pending availability.
2.5 The deadline for the return of the edited document to the Client may be estimated in advance, but shall be agreed before commencement of the work and no later than 24 hours after receipt of the draft document by IEL.
2.6 Unless otherwise agreed, the Client may expect receipt of the edited document by 18.00h GMT time on the agreed date.
2.7 Under exceptional circumstances (e.g. illness, technical failure, family emergency) where an editor is unable to return the document to the Client by the specified time, IEL will inform the client in writing as soon as possible and work to arrange a suitable alternative editor and/or timeline.

3. Discussion of manuscripts by phone/video call
3.1 Clients may request a phone or video call with their allocated IEL Editor to discuss the project either in advance or upon return of the edited document. This service may be booked in advance upon request, and is billable in addition to the cost of editing. Please contact us for availability and pricing.

4. Acknowledgement of editing services
4.1 IEL shall be listed in the Acknowledgements section of any documents delivered. Unless agreed in advance with IEL, this acknowledgement shall include the phrase: “the authors with to thank [insert editor’s name] of Insight Editing London for their assistance in preparing this manuscript”

5. Satisfaction guarantee
5.1 Should the Client be dissatisfied with the quality of IEL’s work on their project, they shall inform IEL within 3 business days of IEL sending their completed project. If IEL is unable to resolve the situation to the Client’s satisfaction, the Client is under no obligation to pay IEL’s fees.
5.2 IEL reserves the right to refuse future projects from Clients who choose not to pay IEL’s fees on the basis of the satisfaction guarantee.

6. Complimentary services
6.1 IEL will edit a single standard covering letter to accompany a manuscript edited by IEL free of charge.
6.2 Should the manuscript subsequently be resubmitted to another journal, editing of
the new covering letter will be charged at the agreed editing rate for the project.
6.4 Upon being informed by the author of publication of a project that IEL has edited, IEL will write a short blog piece on the study and post it on our web and LinkedIn sites, to help raise the profile of the project with potential readers. We will also make this blog available to the corresponding author for their own distribution.

7. Fees
7.1 The hourly fee shall be agreed in advance at the point of accepting the work. A projection of the estimated fee can be provided at this time upon request. The projected fee will be based on the anticipated number of hours the editing is expected to involve, the notice period and the turnaround time requested. The actual fee will be charged on the time taken to edit the work to the highest standard.
7.2 One hour of preparation time is added to all invoices. Should the preparation time exceed 1 hour this is at IEL’s cost.
7.3 Should an editorial report be required to guide substantive changes to the work, this is subject to an additional fee of up to 2 hours at the agreed editing rate.
7.4 All prices listed are in GBP (£) Pounds Sterling. Invoices may be sent in GBP or can be converted into local currency upon request, according to the prevailing rates on the date of invoicing.
7.5 Final invoices will also include fees appropriate to the method of payment selected by the Client. Payments made by bank transfer include a £10 GBP international transfer fee. Payments made by credit card (Selz or Paypal) include credit card transaction fees set by the respective providers.
7.6 Invoices shall be sent electronically as an email attachment, unless otherwise requested by the Client, by the end of the calendar month in which the completed project is returned to the Client. The invoice can be expected to list the projects undertaken for the Client in that month, the number of hours spent on each project, and the fee incurred. Unless otherwise notified by the Client, the invoice shall be deemed to have been received 1 business day after sending.
7.7 Payment is due within 30 days of IEL sending the invoice.

8. Cancellation or amendments to an editing booking
8.1 Notice of a change to the booking shall be made at least 48 hours in advance of commencement of the editing slot to avoid incurring any penalty.
8.2 Changes to the editing slot or cancellation of the editing project shall be made by the client in writing.
8.3 Changes made 24-47 hours before commencement of the editing slot will incur a penalty fee of 25% of the estimated editing cost; changes made 23 hours or less before commencement of the editing slot will incur a penalty fee of 50% of the estimated editing cost.

9. Confidentiality
9.1 Save insofar as such information is already in the public domain, IEL shall undertake all reasonable measures to maintain and keep confidential, and shall not disclose any and all Confidential Information (as defined below), which is made known to them, or which they may acquire or develop during the course of working on the project.
9.2 Unless the Client’s consent is obtained, or there is a legitimate business need to do so, IEL shall not use, reproduce, transform, or store any Confidential Information in an externally accessible computer or electronic information retrieval system or transmit it in any form or by any means whatsoever outside of IEL writers.
9.3 In the case of third party confidentiality agreements, IEL agrees to hold all such Confidential Information in the strictest confidence and not to disclose or use it, except as necessary to perform the assigned duties, in a manner consistent with the Client’s agreement with such third parties. IEL shall, if so requested, execute all such third-party confidentiality agreements, in such form and on such terms as may be required by the Client.
9.4 “Confidential Information” means any and all business, financial, technical and other information, of any type and in any form which may be identified or designated by the Client as proprietary, confidential or secret or any information which by its nature should be proprietary, confidential or secret, including information relating to business, technologies, products and product lines, customers and customer lists, business contacts, business plans and strategies, finance, legal, accounting, intellectual property (including inventions, innovations, trade secrets, processes and lay out designs), data and contracts of the Client, its related organisations and/or spin-off companies.

Any variation to these terms and conditions shall be in writing and signed by both parties to be effective.