Keith S. Taber
Dear Stephen
Thank you for your email message from 'Competent Proofreaders' about the services provided by SPRINGEREDIT (viewpublishers@gmail.com / scrutinyeditors@gmail.com).
I would be interested in learning a little more about exactly what your service entails. I am pretty clear what is involved in 'Proofreading' and 'translating'. But I see you also offer 'correcting for plagiarism'. I wonder if you could tell me a little more about what your service involves here – what I would get for my 40 USD/1000 words?
My understanding is that plagiarism is when an author uses the ideas of another scholar as if their own – without acknowledging the original source. This can be considered not only poor scholarship, but academic malpractice, so I certainly understand why I should be careful to avoid plagiarism in any work I submit for publication. I can therefore see why a service that could correct for plagiarism might be worth investing in, as this could protect scholarly reputation (or in extreme cases, academic employment!)
But I cannot immediately see how you could help me with this. If I asked you to proofread a draft paper, then I know what to expect and I can see that it is very likely that a thorough proofread could technically improve my text. What would you actually do, however, if I submitted a draft paper for 'correcting for plagiarism' – how would you identify any plagiarism (that I might myself not be aware of) and correct it? What exactly would I be paying for?
Best wishes
Keith
