Third Party Editing and Proofreading of Theses and Dissertations Guidelines

These guidelines clarify the contribution permitted by third parties, including
professional editors, and/or the equivalent use of GenAI, in the preparation of theses and dissertations by postgraduate candidates at the University.

The University recognises that many masters and doctoral candidates have their
work scrutinised by third parties, including professional editors, and/or use GenAI
tools for writing assistance. To maintain academic integrity and ensure the originality of candidates' work, the following guidelines must be adhered to regardless of whether using human or GenAI writing assistance.

Maintaining integrity:

Candidates must ensure that third party or GenAI assistance does not endanger the academic integrity and originality of their work. The University views cheating, including submitting without acknowledgement work to which others or GenAI have contributed, as a serious academic offence under the Student Academic Conduct Statute.

Communicating guidelines:

It is the candidate's responsibility to convey these guidelines to third parties (including any professional editor) engaged in checking any version of the thesis or dissertation, and to use GenAI tools in accordance with these guidelines.

Acknowledgement and declaration:

Candidates must acknowledge in their thesis or dissertation any contribution by a third party, and/or declare any GenAI use.

The intervention of a third party or use of GenAI does not absolve the
supervisors from normal advisory duties connected with the production of the
intellectual content and text of the thesis or dissertation.

Third parties, including professional editors and/or GenAI tools, may be used to
improve the following aspects of theses and dissertations:

Spelling and punctuation:

Third parties may correct spelling and punctuation.

Grammar and usage:

Assistance may be provided with:

• the conventions of grammar and syntax in written English
• the expression of numbers, dates, percentages, measurements and
  statistical data
• the use of italics, capitalisation, hyphenation, symbols
• shortened forms, and the display of lists and quotations

Third parties, including professional editors and GenAI tools, may scrutinise and offer advice on the following aspects of theses and dissertations:

Clarity and readability:

Third parties may suggest improvements to avoid ambiguity, repetition and verbosity.

llustrations and tables:

Advice may be given on:

• the position of tables and illustrations in the thesis
• the clarity, grammar, spelling and punctuation of text within
  illustrations and tables

References and formatting consistency:

Third parties may:

• review the completeness and internal consistency of references,
  including citations, bibliography, list of references, endnotes or
  footnotes, and cross-references
• check consistency in page numbers, headers and footers and
  appendices

Third parties must observe the following restrictions to preserve the academic
integrity of the work:

No contribution to intellectual content:

Third parties or GenAI must make no contribution to the intellectual content of the thesis or dissertation other than those disclosed and justified within the thesis or dissertation.

No writing or rewriting

Third parties or GenAI must not write or rewrite any part of the thesis or dissertation.

No calculations:

Third parties or GenAI must not perform numerical calculations
included in the thesis or dissertation, other than those disclosed and justified within the thesis or dissertation.

No structural changes:

Third parties or GenAI may not make corrections to the structure of the thesis, though they may draw structural problems to the candidate's attention for the candidate to address.

Third parties may work on either printed or electronic versions of the thesis or
dissertation.

For spelling, punctuation and grammar:

Third parties or GenAI tools may directly correct errors in spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Any further suggested amendments

Must be indicated using comment tools rather than making direct changes. This ensures the candidate actively considers and makes decisions about all substantive suggestions.

Record keeping:

The candidate must retain a copy of their original draft and a record of all third-party or GenAI comments. The candidate must fully consider all comments and independently decide which advice to accept.

Exception:

These procedures do not apply in cases of third-party editing approved under the posthumous award procedures.

In exceptional circumstances, doctoral candidates may seek the approval of the Pro Vice-Chancellor Global and Graduate Research or delegate to spend a portion of their of PReSS account funding to cover third party editing of the final draft of their thesis. See: PReSS Account Policy & Procedures.

• Student and Academic Services - English Language Enrichment (ELE) offers live, print and electronic resources for English language development. Individual appointments with language advisers are also available.
• The Academic Integrity Course, taken by all students starting a new programme at the University, is an online course designed to increase student knowledge of academic integrity, university rules relating to academic conduct, and the identification and consequences of academic misconduct.

The following definitions apply to this document:

Academic integrity means the ethical practices of the academic community,
including honest execution of research and study and the acknowledgement of
sources.

GenAI refers to generative artificial intelligence. (GenAI) is a subset of AI. In
response to human instructions or 'prompts', GenAI can create new content, such as text, images, video, audio, and code.

Postgraduate candidates are those candidates enrolled in any postgraduate
degree at the University which includes a thesis or dissertation.

PReSS accounts are the Postgraduate Research Student Support (PReSS)
accounts provided by the University to assist doctoral candidates with direct
research costs for up to four years of full-time study or equivalent.

Third parties are people you ask for help, other than your supervisors. Third parties may be fellow students, reading groups, friends, parents, University staff, or professional editing services.

University means Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland and includes all subsidiaries.

Include the following:

• Student Academic Conduct Statute (2020)
• PReSS Account Policy and Procedures
• Doctorate Posthumous Award Procedures

Owner: Pro Vice-Chancellor Global and Graduate Research
Content manager: School of Graduate Studies
Approved by: Graduate Research Committee
Date approved: March 2018
Reviewed date: 6 March 2026
Next review date: 6 March 2031