British University in Dubai

English Language Centre is a UK company and an approved proofreader for British University in Dubai. Fixed fees, completion times and proofreading parameters have been agreed between the two organisations. Therefore, it is vital that BUiD undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral students declare their status so that the correct proofreading elements can be applied to the capstone project, master’s dissertation/final project, PhD thesis or journal article.

Completion times

The following standard proofreading completion times apply to BUiD undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral students (* working days: Mon–Fri):

Capstone projects and master’s dissertations/final projects (8,000–20,000 words): completion in 5 working days
PhD theses (60,000–80,000 words): completion in 10 working days

The following express proofreading completion times are only available to BUiD master’s students with dissertations:*

4 working day completion
3 working day completion

The following express proofreading completion times are only available to BUiD doctoral students with PhD theses:*

7 working day completion
5 working day completion

* Please note that the availability of the express proofreading service for master’s and doctoral students is not guaranteed. You are strongly encouraged to get in touch in advance to confirm availability if your submission deadline is pressing.

Proofreading rate

The standard agreed rate for proofreading is (GBP) £10 per 1,000 words, or part thereof. Payment by PayPal incurs an additional 6% surcharge to cover the fees of the payment provider. The student will need to approve the quotation for the proofreading process to begin. The express proofreading rate for master’s students, when available, is £13 per 1,000 words (4 working day completion) and £15 per 1,000 words (3 working day completion). The express proofreading rate for doctoral students, when available, is £13 per 1,000 words (7 working day completion) and £15 per 1,000 words (5 working day completion).

Formatting

In order to be in compliance with the BUiD Library formatting guidelines, the dissertation/thesis manuscript needs to formatted so that the layout, spacing, headings, table of contents, lists of tables/figures, presentation of tables/figures, paragraph styling, page numbering, etc., meet the Library requirements as stipulated in the provided template. This service can be included as an addition to the proofreading, or as stand-alone service, and is based on a fee of £3 per 1,000 words for standard dissertations/theses or £4.50 per 1,000 words for complex dissertations/theses that are rich in figures/tables/sections. Any further requests by the Library for minor formatting adjustments will be completed free of charge.

Quotation form

Payment

The quotation assumes that payment is made by bank transfer to a UK bank, or via PayPal.
All transfer fees must paid by the sender (i.e. the student requesting the work).
Payment should be received in full seven calendar days after the proofread manuscript has been returned.

Frequently asked questions

To ensure availability, please get in touch directly via info@englishlc.com or through the contact form, clearly stating your word count and the date when the manuscript will be ready for proofreading.

The University does not permit students to make requests for exclusions (e.g. the footnotes, the references section) in the proofreading of their documents.

Your Microsoft Word document can either be sent as an attachment to info@englishlc.com, or you can attach and send it through the contact form.

Availability for the express proofreading of dissertations or doctoral theses is not guaranteed. You are strongly encouraged to get in touch one or two weeks before you expect to send the manuscript for proofreading in order to (i) check the availability, and (ii) reserve the time necessary to proofread your manuscript.

Track Changes is a feature of Microsoft Word that allows a proofreader to make changes to your document. All the changes are recorded, so you stay in complete control of your document. You can see the process in action here.

Once your pre-agreed document has been received, you will be sent a confirmation email with the deadline for the return of the completed version.

A native-speaking proofreader will work on your document, who is a graduate with over 10 years’ experience proofreading scientific, academic and professional documents.

Yes, your documents will be stored on a password-protected server, while the computer used to carry out the proofreading runs the latest security software.

You will receive back two documents: your-filename 01.docx and your-filename 02.docx. The first document has all the changes marked up in blue font style. Therefore, you can review, accept, or reject any of the changes that have been made. The second document is the clean working copy. The email (and the attachments) will be copied to the BUiD Doctoral Centre. In the clean proofread version there will be comments to address with suggestions and/or queries where the proofreader has been unable to determine your intended meaning. You will also receive a feedback PDF with suggestions to improve the writing and (if applicable) to bring the dissertation in line with the APA referencing system and BUiD formatting guidelines. Ideally, you should ensure some free time is available to make any final adjustments to the dissertation prior to the submission deadline.

You should read carefully through the whole document, noting and verifying all the changes that have been made, and actioning any comments that have been made.

After you have checked and taken action in response to the comments in version 02, you can delete each comment by right clicking and selecting Delete Comment, or by going to the MS Word menu and selecting Review >> Delete >> Delete all Comments in Document.

Under UK taxation law, English Language Centre is not required to apply UK VAT to purchases of proofreading services. However, from 1st July 2021, VAT must be applied to private EU students based on the VAT rate of their country of residence (e.g. Czech Republic: 21%; France: 20%; Poland: 23%). This only applies to private EU students, and so non-EU students living and using the banking services of all other regions (e.g. the Middle-East and Asia) and countries (e.g. the UAE and Japan) are not affected. This change is based on EU measures to modernise VAT for cross-border e-commerce, with more information available here.

Advisory

Please note that any failure to declare an association with BUiD introduces two threats for a student: (i) the required elements may not be applied to the proofreading process, thus jeopardising the ability to pass the examination process; and (ii) BUiD applies strict penalties to students operating outside the stipulated proofreading boundaries.