My friends have suggested that I use the free grammar checkers online. But I am not confident about using anything AI because I am afraid it might lead to a self-plagiarism report. Plus, I am not sure if an AI will understand how I think, which led to the sentence formation. With respect to self-plagiarism, that really shouldn't be an issue, at all. Plagiarism scans usually indicate where (meaning from which university system, etc.) and when the matching text was first uploaded. So, anything flagged would only indicate that your text was uploaded by someone at your school to a grammar-checking system shortly before your due date. Presumably, you could easily provide proof that it was you who uploaded your own essay to be scanned, by simply preserving the record of that grammar scan (and/or screen shots). Those systems usually do retain the essay for future use; but that doesn't really pertain to the issue of your being accused of plagiarism (now), just because your course-submitted essay matches your own essay that you scanned a few days before submitting it for credit.
Do you think that my concerns will be better avoided if I use a human editor instead? How much would a writer normally charge for a page of editing and proofreading? more importantly, how different would a human editor be from an AI? Would he consider my ESL situation during the editing process? Actually, those grammar scans work pretty well for correcting typical ESL grammar, syntax, and word-choice issues. What those systems are terrible at doing is identifying (actual) mistakes in better, more complex writing of good writers like me. They aren't programmed to be sufficiently creative or flexible to distinguish (actual) mistakes from mere sentence complexity, and they often wrongly flag perfectly correct English.
I provide editing and proofreading; but almost every time a prospective client (especially an ESL client) asks me for "editing" or "proofreading," what the work really needs is a much more substantial or (most often) a complete rewrite. The cost of editing/proofreading always depends on how much work it really needs; so it can't be priced without seeing it. Even when the work could be edited, unless you're a very good writer, it's almost always a waste of money, because you'll be paying at least 50% of the price of a new essay and "editing" really only covers the writing, and never the substantive quality of the work. Most of the time, paying at least 50% of the price of new writing just to correct the English in very mediocre (or much worse than mediocre) substantive work is a waste of money, because there's not much value in a very "well-written" C- essay, based on substantive content. At most, "editing" means line editing, which doesn't address the quality of the actual argument or analysis presented in the work.
Finally, yes, good writers can easily hold back so that the work doesn't have sentences or vocabulary that are way too advanced for ESL students. I do this all the time by request. Other times, I'm the one who raises the issue and asks the client whether he wants me to hold back, even when the client hasn't mentioned it, anytime I notice that the English and writing of the email obviously indicates much lower-quality writing than what I'd normally provide, whether it's because the client is ESL or NES, but just not that good a writer. |