Frequently asked questions

Scribbr’s AI Humanizer looks at your text and suggests more natural ways to say the same thing. It spots AI-like patterns and replaces them with more natural phrasing, while keeping your original message intact. Think of it as a translator that converts AI language into human language.

AI writing has a distinctive style that’s easy to spot – it’s often too formal, uses repetitive patterns, or just sounds a bit off. The AI Humanizer helps you avoid these common signs of AI writing, making sure your text sounds natural and authentically yours.

AI Humanizer transforms AI-generated text to sound more natural and conversational. While this may result in AI detection tools being less likely to flag the text, our focus is on improving writing quality and readability, not evading detection.

If our grammar checker flags an error that is not actually an error, you have several options:

1. Ignore the error: Most grammar checkers allow users to skip or ignore suggestions they do not agree with or find irrelevant. If you are confident that the flagged “error” is not an issue, you can bypass the suggestion and move on to the next one.

2. Review the context: Take a moment to thoroughly review the context surrounding the flagged error. Sometimes, the initial correct usage might still create confusion or ambiguity within the specific context, and reconsidering the phrasing could improve overall clarity.

Yes, this grammar checker covers the following mistakes:

1. Grammar: Correction of grammatical errors such as subject-verb agreement, tense usage, and sentence structure

2. Spelling: identification and correction of spelling errors, including typos and commonly confused words.

3. Punctuation: Detection and rectification of punctuation errors, including incorrect use of commas, periods, colons, and other punctuation.

4. Word choice errors: Catch words that sound similar but aren’t, like their vs. they’re and your vs. you’re.

Yes. There’s no sign up or payment required to use the grammar checker.

Yes. The grammar checker fixes any text, no matter what the medium is.

The Scribbr grammar checker finds more errors than many other tools and is particularly user-friendly:

• Winner: In our test comparison, the Scribbr grammar checker found 19 out of 20 errors, putting it in first place.
• No registration required: You don’t need an account to use the grammar checker.
• No limits: There is no character or word limit.
• Ad-free: There is no advertising on Scribbr to distract from the tool.

For more details, feel free to read our test of the best English grammar checkers.

The Grammar Checker on our page is powered by the QuillBot service, which uses advanced language processing technology.

Both Scribbr and QuillBot are Learneo, Inc. services, ensuring that your inputs are processed in accordance with Learneo’s Privacy Policy.

For more, please read the QuillBot section of the Learneo Privacy Policy. Your use of our Grammar Checker is subject to QuilBot Terms.

To check grammar using Grammar Checker, simply copy and paste your text into the tool. It will automatically highlight grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. Review the suggestions and apply corrections to improve your writing.

The act of putting someone else’s ideas or words into your own words is called paraphrasing, rephrasing, or rewording. Even though they are often used interchangeably, the terms can mean slightly different things:

Paraphrasing is restating someone else’s ideas or words in your own words while retaining their meaning. Paraphrasing changes sentence structure, word choice, and sentence length to convey the same meaning.

Rephrasing may involve more substantial changes to the original text, including changing the order of sentences or the overall structure of the text.

Rewording is changing individual words in a text without changing its meaning or structure, often using synonyms.

It can. One of the two methods of paraphrasing is called “Fluency.” This will improve the language and fix grammatical errors in the text you’re paraphrasing.

Paraphrasing and using a paraphrasing tool aren’t cheating. It’s a great tool for saving time and coming up with new ways to express yourself in writing.  However, always be sure to credit your sources. Avoid plagiarism. 

If you don’t properly cite text paraphrased from another source, you’re plagiarizing. If you use someone else’s text and paraphrase it, you need to credit the original source. You can do that by using citations. There are different styles, like APA, MLA, Harvard, and Chicago. Find more information about citing sources here.

The Paraphrasing Tool on our page is powered by the QuillBot service, which uses advanced language processing technology.

Both Scribbr and QuillBot are Learneo, Inc. services, ensuring that your inputs are processed in accordance with Learneo’s Privacy Policy.

For more, please read the QuillBot section of the Learneo Privacy Policy. Your use of our Paraphraser is subject to QuilBot Terms.

Paraphrasing without crediting the original author is a form of plagiarism, because you’re presenting someone else’s ideas as if they were your own.

However, paraphrasing is not plagiarism if you correctly cite the source. This means including an in-text citation and a full reference, formatted according to your required citation style.

As well as citing, make sure that any paraphrased text is completely rewritten in your own words.

Plagiarism means using someone else’s words or ideas and passing them off as your own. Paraphrasing means putting someone else’s ideas in your own words.

So when does paraphrasing count as plagiarism?

• Paraphrasing is plagiarism if you don’t properly credit the original author.
• Paraphrasing is plagiarism if your text is too close to the original wording (even if you cite the source). If you directly copy a sentence or phrase, you should quote it instead.
• Paraphrasing is not plagiarism if you put the author’s ideas completely in your own words and properly cite the source.

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Scribbr’s spell checker finds typos and misused words, unlike other spell checkers. It considers the context—the sentence’s subject and meaning—and the spelling and meaning of a word.

English, German, and French are supported. Because there are different English dialects worldwide, this spell checker supports US, UK, Canadian, and Australian English.

Yes, it is. It’s also completely ad-free, and no sign-up is required.

It isn’t. Grammar checkers are acceptable in universities because they do not raise plagiarism concerns and aren’t considered unauthorized tools that provide an unfair advantage. Using a punctuation checker is just as legal as hiring a proofreader.

Because this is an advanced punctuation checker, it also gives you suggestions for grammatically incorrect sentences.

Scribbr’s AI Detector can confidently detect most English texts generated by popular tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Our free AI Detector can detect texts written using GPT2, GPT3, and GPT3.5 with average accuracy, while our Premium AI Detector has high accuracy and the ability to detect GPT4.

Our AI Detector is carefully trained to detect most texts generated by popular tools like ChatGPT and Bard. These texts often contain certain phrases, patterns, or awkward wording that indicate they were not created by a human. However, no AI model on the market can guarantee 100% accuracy, including ours. To get the best results, we recommend scanning longer pieces of text rather than individual sentences or paragraphs.

Our research into the best AI detectors indicates that no tool can provide complete accuracy; the highest accuracy we found was 84% in a premium tool or 68% in the best free tool.

The AI score is a percentage between 0% and 100%, indicating how much of the text contains content likely written or refined using AI tools.

No—Scribbr’s AI Detector will only give you a percentage between 0% and 100% that indicates the likelihood that your text contains contains AI-generated, AI-refined, or human-written content.

No—our AI content checker can only identify AI-generated, AI-refined, and human-written content. Our Plagiarism Checker can help prevent unintentional plagiarism in your writing.

Yes—our AI Detector can currently analyze text in English, Spanish, German, and French

Scribbr’s AI Detector is different from other AI detection tools for two main reasons. First, it identifies how AI was used to create your content. Our analysis will notify you if each section of writing was:

1) AI-generated
2) AI-generated & AI-refined
3) human-written & AI-refined
4) human-written

With this detailed analysis, you don’t just know if AI may have been used to generate the content but also clarifies how assistive tools may have been used in the writing process.

Second, our AI Checker offers feedback on every section of your writing, so you always know exactly which sentences appear to contain AI-generated content. This makes your editing process much easier, as you can quickly identify and revise any problematic sections of your text.

Our AI Proofreader has been trained on academic texts. It also addresses commonly confused words, and it’s more accurate than Word’s autocorrect feature. Word’s autocorrect feature usually operates on a word level, whereas our AI Proofreader can proofread on the sentence and, to an extent, even the paragraph level. Because it’s more accurate and fixes more than just grammar mistakes, our AI Proofreader identifies and corrects more mistakes overall. Furthermore, because you check your document with our AI Proofreader after you’ve finished writing it, your workflow won’t be interrupted.

Rest assured: Your documents are safe. The document you upload is deleted immediately after it’s been processed by our AI Proofreader, and your processed document will automatically be deleted from our servers after 12 months. If you’d like to delete the stored copy of your document sooner, you can do so manually through your user profile at any time. For more information, please consult our articles on how we ensure the security of your documents.

For now, the AI Proofreader only corrects based on the conventions of US English. We will add other dialects at a later stage.

You can only upload .docx (Word) files to the AI Proofreader.

Absolutely! The AI Proofreader is particularly useful for non-native English speakers, as it can detect mistakes that may have gone unnoticed.

There’s no need for any downloads! You can use our AI Proofreader right in your web browser. Just upload your document and sit back; you’ll receive a revised version of your document within 10 minutes.

No; the AI Proofreader currently focuses on grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. If you’re interested in detecting any potential plagiarism in a document, we recommend that you consider our Plagiarism Checker. The AI Proofreader is included for free in that service.

Absolutely! Every change suggested by the AI Proofreader is indicated as a tracked change in Word. You can decide which changes to accept or reject in your document, and, if you’re feeling confident, you can even accept all of the changes with just one click.

The exact time depends on the length of your document, but, in most cases, the proofreading will be completed within a maximum of 10 minutes.

No.To make sure that your reference list isn’t disrupted, we’ve implemented suppression rules in our model.

No. You can, however, get a free report that tells you exactly how many and what kinds of mistakes there are in your document.

Malapropisms and puns are similar, but they have key differences:

• Malapropisms are usually unintentional on the part of the speaker or character. They typically don’t aim to highlight double meanings.
• Puns are typically used deliberately. They rely on multiple meanings of the same word (or similar-sounding words) to achieve a double entendre.

Malapropisms and spoonerisms are both humorous linguistic errors and literary devices. However, there is a key difference:

• Malapropisms confuse similar-sounding words.
• Spoonerisms mix up the initial sounds of multiple words within a phrase.

For example, “You have tasted two whole worms” (meaning “You have wasted two whole terms”) is a classic spoonerism from a 1911 issue of The Strand Magazine.

Compound words and portmanteaus are both formed by joining multiple words, but there are a few differences between the two:

• Compound words retain all the letters from both original words and don’t always express meanings from both words (e.g., butter + fly = butterfly). A compound word is treated as a distinct word with its own dictionary entry.
• Portmanteaus omit letters from the original words (e.g., Spanish + English = Spanglish) to combine the original words’ sounds and meanings. Portmanteaus are often treated as casual or informal, though some become widely accepted and have their own dictionary entries.

“Smog” is a portmanteau of “smoke” and “fog” used to describe the visible air pollution often found in urban areas. The term “smog” was coined by a London resident in 1905 and gained prominence during the Industrial Revolution as cities experienced increased emissions from factories and vehicles. This illustrates the role of neologisms such as portmanteaus in marking societal changes.

Puns and double entendres both involve double meanings, but there is a key difference:

• A pun is any play on words that involves multiple meanings of the same word or phrase.
• A double entendre is a specific type of pun that has a slightly indecent (typically sexual) connotation.

“No pun intended” is a common expression used to highlight a pun while ostensibly claiming that the pun was unintentional. This phrase is often used humorously to call attention to a pun that the speaker recognizes is cliché and likely to elicit a groan. However, in some cases the phrase is used sincerely, indicating that the speaker did not notice the pun until after it was spoken.

The opposite of verbal irony is straightforwardness—expressing one’s intended meaning directly without any hint of a hidden meaning. “Literalness” or “directness” also express the opposite of “irony.” The word “sincerity” is another antonym for “irony,” emphasizing that the speaker lacks any sarcastic or sardonic intent.

A triple entendre is a play on words with three interpretations based on the use of words with shared sounds or spellings. Triple entendres often have at least one taboo or risqué interpretation. The name “triple entendre” is based on the name of a more common rhetorical device, “double entendre” (originally from the French for “double meaning”).

An example of a triple entendre can be found in the song “Hotel California” by the Eagles. The line “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave” has at least three possible interpretations:

1. A person can literally “check out” of Hotel California.
2. A person can “check out” in the sense of mentally escaping reality through substance abuse.
3. A person might think they can quit (similar to “check out”) anytime they like when suffering from an addiction.

A classic example of a double entendre is Michael Scott’s “That’s what she said” jokes in the TV show The Office. Michael uses this phrase to humorously imply a secondary, suggestive meaning to an otherwise innocent statement. This play on words contributed to the eccentricity of Michael Scott’s persona while adding a humorous twist to the show’s dialogue.

In Poe’s short story “The Cask of Amontillado,” he uses verbal irony to create tension and dark humor.

For example, Montresor offers Fortunato wine, saying, “It will help to keep us warm.” This statement is ironic because Montresor is leading Fortunato to a cold, damp catacomb, where he plans to kill him. Later, Fortunado says, “I drink to the dead who lie sleeping
around us.” Montresor responds, “And I, Fortunato—I drink to your long life,” though he means the opposite.

The verbal irony in “The Cask of Amontillado” complements the story’s dramatic irony, building tension for the reader, who is aware of Montresor’s true intentions.

Verbal irony involves saying one thing but meaning the opposite, while Socratic irony involves feigning ignorance to provoke critical thinking in others.

• Verbal irony example: A person arrives late to a meeting, and someone says, “Well, look who decided to join us!”
• Socratic irony example: In a classroom discussion, a teacher asks seemingly naive questions to lead students to reconsider their assumptions or explore complex concepts further.

A play on words can serve several purposes in written and spoken communication.

Purposes of wordplay include:

• humor
• irony
• subtlety
• emphasis
• creativity
• engagement
• persuasion

An example of a play on words is the joke “He had a photographic memory but never developed it.” The word “developed” can refer to developing skills or developing photographs.

This particular form of wordplay is called a pun, creating humor using words or phrases with multiple meanings.

A famous literary play on words can be found in William Shakespeare’s Richard III:

“Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York.”

This line blends metaphor with wordplay, using a pun on “son” and “sun” to depict Richard, son of the House of York, as the force that ends winter’s troubles.

Paradoxes can serve several purposes:

• In literature and rhetoric, paradoxes can be used as rhetorical or plot devices. They can add humor, provoke philosophical thought, or express critique through satire.
  • Example: “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” (Oscar Wilde, De Profundis)

• In logic and other branches of philosophy, paradoxes highlight flaws or contradictions in currently accepted definitions and systems, demonstrating the need for further inquiry.
  • Example: If you keep removing grains of sand from a heap, at what point does it stop being a heap? (This problem is referred to as the “paradox of the heap,” or the “sorites paradox”).

• In everyday aphorisms, paradoxes are used to express philosophical insights and practical wisdom in a memorable and sometimes humorous way.
  • Example: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

The plot of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 is a classic example of literary paradox.

The central paradox is that airmen who are considered insane can request to be grounded and thus avoid flying dangerous combat missions. However, airmen who request to be grounded based on safety concerns are not actually insane, having the presence of mind to recognize the danger of their situation. Heller uses this paradox to satirize the circular logic of military bureaucracy.

Heller’s paradoxical narrative is the origin of the term “catch-22,” which describes any situation where contradictory rules or conditions prevent a solution or escape.

Paradoxes and oxymorons both involve contradictions, but there is a key difference:

• A paradox is a complete statement or scenario that seems self-contradictory but reveals a thought-provoking truth upon further examination (e.g., “The only constant in life is change”).
• An oxymoron is a figure of speech consisting of a short phrase that combines contradictory terms for rhetorical effect (e.g., “alone together”).

The predestination paradox is a time-travel concept in which an event is both a cause and an effect of itself.

One classic example of the predestination paradox is from the science fiction film 12 Monkeys. The film’s protagonist, Cole, is sent back in time to gather information about a virus that kills most of humanity. He eventually learns that his own actions in the past contributed to the outbreak of the virus, creating a self-referential loop of cause and effect. By trying to prevent the catastrophe, Cole is causing it.

Other time-travel paradoxes include the grandfather paradox and the bootstrap paradox.

More broadly, a paradox is a saying or scenario that seems logically contradictory or impossible, which upon closer examination reveals a deeper truth or coherence within a specific context or framework.

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Cliché can be used as a noun or an adjective. (“Clichéd” is more commonly used as the adjective form.)

Noun usage:

• The movie was filled with every cliché imaginable.
• That phrase has become a tired cliché.

Adjective usage:

• The plot was cliché(d) and predictable.
• His speech was full of cliché(d) expressions.

Cliché has several synonyms and near-synonyms:

Various short sayings can become clichés through overuse but lack the term’s inherent negative connotations. These include adages, aphorisms, catchphrases, idioms, mantras, maxims, mottos, proverbs, slogans, and truisms.

Cliché is spelled with an acute accent mark (é).

• Noun spelling: cliché (plural: clichés)
• Adjective spelling: clichéd (preferred) or cliché*

*The word cliché can serve as an adjective without modification because of its French origins as the past participle of “cliquer” (to click).

Common types of wordplay include puns, double entendres, paraprosdokians, spoonerisms, and malapropisms.

• Puns: Wordplay based on the multiple meanings of words or the similarity of sound between different words (e.g., “I’m a dentist, so I know the drill.”)
• Double entendres: Phrases or expressions with two interpretations, one of which is usually somewhat risqué or taboo (e.g., “The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.”)
• Paraprosdokians: Sentences or phrases with an unexpected ending or twist, often leading to humor or surprise (e.g., “Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.”)
• Spoonerisms: Errors in speech where corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched between two words in a phrase (e.g., “It is kisstomary to cuss the bride.”)
• Malapropisms: The mistaken use of a word in place of a similar-sounding one, often resulting in nonsensical or humorous statements (e.g., “Texas has a lot of electrical votes.”)
• Mondegreens: Misheard or misinterpreted phrases or lyrics, often resulting in humorous or nonsensical meanings (e.g., “Excuse me while I kiss the sky” from the Jimi Hendrix song “Purple Haze” is often misheard as “Excuse me while I kiss this guy.”)

A figure of speech involving a sentence with a surprise ending is called a “paraprosdokian.” Other terms include “surprise ending” or “twist.”

Paraprosdokian example: “The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it’s still on my list.”

“Paraprosdokian” is pronounced par-uh-pros-DOH-kee-an.

The word “paraprosdokian” is derived from the Greek for “against expectation.” It describes a figure of speech that establishes an expectation and ends with a surprise twist.

While irony is a technique used in satire, satire is a broad genre that aims to provoke thought and promote change.

• Irony involves a contrast between expectation and reality, highlighting discrepancies through situational irony, verbal irony, or dramatic irony.
• Satire uses humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to criticize and expose the flaws or vices of individuals, societies, or institutions. It aims to provoke thought and promote change.

An example of irony in literature is in O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi,” where Jim and Della each sacrifice their most prized possession to buy a gift for the other: Della sells her hair for a chain, and Jim sells his watch for combs.

The situational irony lies in the fact that Jim and Della’s well-intentioned sacrifices make their gifts useless. This irony highlights the idea that the true value of gifts lies in the love and sacrifice they represent.

Socratic irony is the technique of posing simple questions, as if one were ignorant, to expose the ignorance or flaws in others’ arguments. The irony lies in the fact that by feigning ignorance, you can lead people to reveal their own misunderstandings or contradictions, encouraging deeper reflection and critical thinking. This method is a key part of the Socratic method of teaching and dialogue.

Example: In Plato’s dialogues, Socrates questions Euthyphro about the nature of piety. Socrates pretends not to understand what piety is and asks Euthyphro to explain it. Through a series of questions, Socrates exposes the inconsistencies in Euthyphro’s definitions, showing that Euthyphro does not actually understand the concept as well as he claims.

Cosmic irony, also known as irony of fate, is a literary device where the universe or fate seems to play a cruel joke by thwarting expectations. It is a type of situational irony that involves characters receiving the opposite of what they expect or deserve, giving the impression of a profound injustice inflicted by fate or a higher power.

Example: In the ancient Greek myth of Oedipus Rex, Oedipus tries to avoid his prophesied fate of killing his father and marrying his mother, but his actions unwittingly lead him to fulfill the prophecy. This irony highlights the impression that cosmic forces shape human destiny in unexpected and often tragic ways.

Both coincidence and situational irony can involve unexpected outcomes that evoke surprise. However, the terms differ in their emphasis:

• Irony: Emphasizes the contrast between expected outcomes and actual results, often revealing deeper meaning or creating a humorous effect; used deliberately in literature
• Coincidence: Highlights the randomness and lack of logical connection or deliberateness in events

The controversy surrounding Alanis Morissette’s song “Isn’t It Ironic?” centers on interpretations of whether the situations described in the song qualify as genuine irony or merely as instances of coincidence or bad luck.

Tragic irony occurs when the audience can foresee the impending downfall of a character, but the character is unaware. It is a type of dramatic irony.

Tragic irony is related to the concept of a tragic flaw, also known as hamartia. A tragic flaw is a character trait, typically one that is positive or noble, which when taken to an extreme leads the protagonist to their downfall.

Tragic irony can highlight the protagonist’s tragic flaw by emphasizing the gap between the character’s self-concept and the reality that the audience perceives.

Both dramatic irony and verbal irony involve a contrast between what is perceived and what is actually true in a narrative. However, there is a key difference:

• Dramatic irony involves the audience’s awareness of information that characters lack. It is used to create tension, often emphasizing themes like the cruelty of fate or the folly of deception.
• Verbal irony involves a contrast between what is said and what is meant. It is often used for sarcasm, humor, or to add impact to a paradox.

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth the audience knows that Macbeth plans to kill King Duncan to fulfill the witches’ prophecy of his becoming king. However, Duncan and the other characters, aside from Lady Macbeth, are unaware of his plans. This dramatic irony creates tension and suspense as the audience anticipates the unfolding tragedy while other characters remain oblivious to Macbeth’s sinister plans and ambitions.

Oxymorons tend to be intentional, but sometimes they are used unintentionally. “Act naturally” and “old news” are oxymorons that are sometimes used unintentionally.

Scribbr’s Paraphrasing Tool can ensure you use the correct language to express your point effectively.

An example of an oxymoron is a “known secret.” Taken at face value, the two words contradict each other, but upon second thought, they combine to create a deeper meaning.

In this case, the deeper meaning is that something is supposed to be a secret, but everyone knows.

Scribbr’s Paraphrasing Tool can ensure you use the correct language to express your point effectively.

A classic example of symbolism in literature is the white whale in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.

Captain Ahab, the protagonist, enters a relentless pursuit of the white whale. Throughout the novel, the white whale appears only sporadically, but its presence looms over the entire narrative, and more specifically, Captain Ahab.

The white whale is most commonly thought to be symbolic of both the unattainable as well as how obsession can destroy and consume individuals.

Scribbr’s Paraphrasing Tool can help you choose the perfect wording to express your thoughts in your writing.

Allegory and symbolism are similar, but they have one key difference.

In a narrative that uses symbolism, the symbol is a singular element that adds to the greater story. When a narrative is an allegory, nearly every plot element represents something in the story.

For example, the green light in The Great Gatsby is an example of symbolism because it’s a single element within the bigger picture.

However, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is an allegory because everything from the cave to the people, fire, shadows, and chains—basically, all of the major elements of the narrative—represents something to form the bigger picture.

Scribbr’s Paraphrasing Tool helps you explore new ways to express yourself in your writing.

Symbolism and metaphor are easy to confuse. However, they are two different literary devices.

Symbolism relies on symbols (objects, people, or colors) to represent abstract ideas or concepts. It usually has a direct connection to what it represents, and its meaning can evolve throughout the narrative. For example, in The Scarlet Letter, the letter A initially stands for “adulterer” but evolves to mean “able” by the end of the story.

A metaphor compares two seemingly unrelated things, stating that one thing is another. Metaphors are often brief, like the phrase “She’s a night owl.” The purpose is to create vivid imagery, exaggerate a trait, or express a complex idea.

Symbolism and metaphor both compare two things to each other, but symbolism is when one thing represents another, and metaphor is when one thing is another.

Scribbr’s Paraphrasing Tool can help you find the right wording for symbols and metaphors in your writing.

Consonance and sibilance are both literary devices that involve the repetition of sounds, but they differ in the type of sound that’s repeated.

Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds in nearby words (e.g., “Mike likes to hike and ride his bike”). The consonant sound emphasized in this sentence is “k.”

Sibilance is the repetition of the “s” sound in nearby words (e.g., “The whispering sound of the stream soothed their spirits.”

Scribbr’s Paraphrasing Tool can help you select the best wording to effectively communicate in your writing.

Assonance and sibilance are both literary devices that involve the repetition of sounds, but they differ in the type of sound that’s repeated.

Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words (e.g., “The rain in Spain mainly stays in the plain”). The vowel sound emphasized in this sentence is the long “a.”

Sibilance is the repetition of the “s” sound (or, similar sounds, like “z”) in nearby words (e.g., “He spoke in a soft, soothing tone, settling his son to sleep.”

Scribbr’s Paraphrasing Tool can help you select the best wording to effectively communicate in your writing.

Constrained writing is a literary technique where writers follow specific rules or limitations while coming up with text. These constraints are often self-imposed and used as a writing exercise to inspire creativity and think within a set of boundaries.

Two examples of constrained writing are writing haikus or palindromes.

Scribbr’s free Paraphrasing Tool can help you expand your writing style by suggesting alternate phrasing.

Parachronism is a type of anachronism that occurs when something from the past is placed in a futuristic or modern setting. 

In other words, parachronism is when a modern setting uses a person, object, or technology that doesn’t fit because it is considered outdated (e.g., a typewriter in a modern office setting).

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An example of anachronism in literature is Shakespeare’s reference to cannon fire in Macbeth.

The play is set during King Macbeth of Scotland’s reign, which occurred during the 11th century. However, cannons were not introduced to Europe until the 14th century—about 300 years after the setting of Macbeth.

This is an example of prochronism, a type of anachronism where something from the future is depicted in a past setting.

Scribbr’s free Paraphrasing Tool ensures you’re using the right language to express your ideas effectively.

Onomatopoeia is often used in literature to enhance the reading or listening experience by using more impactful and immersive auditory language.

For example, in The Sound of Things Falling, Juan Gabriel Vásquez writes, “I heard a loud thud, and I turned to see the object that had fallen.”

Scribbr’s free Paraphrasing Tool can help you choose the perfect phrasing to express your ideas clearly.

One of the best examples of onomatopoeia in advertising is Kellogg’s slogan—Snap! Crackle! Pop!—to describe their Rice Krispies.

Onomatopoeia is used in this example to describe the sounds the popular cereal makes when milk is added.

Scribbr’s free Paraphrasing Tool can help you choose the perfect phrasing to express your ideas clearly.

Onomonopia is a common misspelling of the word onomatopoeia. The correct term refers to words that phonetically imitate the sounds they describe (e.g., snap, bang).

Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker ensures you use the correct spelling every time.

There are two main differences between assonance and rhyme.

Assonance is the repetition of a vowel sound in nearby words and can be at the beginning, middle, or end of a word (e.g., “She needs to feed the sheep”).

Rhyme is the repetition of a vowel or consonant sound, but it must be at the end of the word (e.g., “The cat sat on the flat mat”).

Scribbr’s free Paraphrasing Tool can help you clearly express your ideas in your writing.

Consonance is the repetition of a consonant sound at the beginning, middle, or end of the word (e.g., “The wild winds whisked the leaves away”).

Assonance is the repetition of a vowel sound at the beginning, middle, or end of a word (e.g., “The smooth grooves of the music moved me”).

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Assonance is the repetition of a vowel sound in nearby words and can occur at the beginning, middle, or end of the word (e.g., “We keep the keys in the green jeep”).

Alliteration is the repetition of a consonant sound at the beginning of nearby words (e.g., “Big brown bears bounce between boulders”).

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Some words that rhyme with you are view, new, zoo, chew, stew, blue, and few.

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Some words that rhyme with me are tea, sea, degree, key, bee, free, and glee.

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Some words that rhyme with love are dove, glove, shove, of, and above.

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Orange is considered one of the hardest words in the English language to rhyme with, as there is no perfect rhyme.

However, the words hinge, syringe, foreign, and door hinge (two words) are slant rhymes and are considered the closest words to a word that rhymes with orange.

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A near rhyme is another term for slant rhyme, which describes words that have similar but not identical sounds (e.g., “bait/paid,” “film/kiln”).

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Allegory and extended metaphors are similar but distinct.

An allegory uses characters, events, and settings to represent one or more comparisons throughout an entire story or work (e.g., Animal Farm by George Orwell).

An extended metaphor says that one thing is another thing and then elaborates by explaining how they are similar. For example, “Life is a journey. Each step takes us further, each turn opens to the unknown, and we sometimes stumble, but forward is the only direction.”

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An extended metaphor is similar to a metaphor in that they both compare two things.

A metaphor is a basic comparison made in one line or phrase (e.g., “You are my sunshine”).

An extended metaphor uses more language to elaborate on a more complex level (e.g., “You are my sunshine. You brighten my day, and your love gives me a warm feeling.”

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A conceit in literature is when the author uses an extended metaphor to compare two very different things, often in a surprising way.

One example of a conceit is in John Donne’s poem “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” where he compares two lovers to the two legs of a compass. While one leg spins, the fixed leg leans toward it, always connected.

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Alliteration is when several nearby words start with the same letter and make the same sound (e.g., “curious cats climb cliffs”).

Scribbr’s free Paraphrasing Tool can help you select certain synonyms that begin with similar sounds to improve your alliteration.

Alliteration and rhyme both involve the repetition of similar sounds, but there are some differences.

Alliteration is the repetition of an identical consonant sound at the beginning of words (e.g., “fresh flowers flourish fully”).

Rhyme is the repetition of an identical vowel sound or vowel/consonant combination at the end of words (e.g., “tree/bee,” “moon/spoon”).

Scribbr’s free Paraphrasing Tool can help you select certain synonyms that begin with similar sounds to improve your alliteration.

Alliteration is the repetition of an identical consonant sound at the beginning of nearby words (e.g., “the crisp caramel cookie crumbled”).

Repetition is the repeated use of entire words or phrases throughout one or multiple sentences (e.g., “step by step, inch by inch”).

Scribbr’s free Paraphrasing Tool can help you select certain synonyms that begin with similar sounds to improve your alliteration.

An example of consonance is the repeated “l” sounds in the following sentence: “The little boy kicked the ball, his laughter ringing out as it rolled into the tall grass.”

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An example of metonymy is “Rising interest rates are making Wall Street nervous.”

“Wall Street” is used in place of “American financial markets.”

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Metonymy and metaphor are both figures of speech that relate one thing to another thing, but they do so differently.

• Metonymy replaces one word or phrase with another word or phrase that is closely related or associated with it (e.g., using “Silicon Valley” to describe the “American tech industry”).
• A metaphor makes a direct comparison between two seemingly unrelated things by stating one is the other (e.g., “Life is a highway”).

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Synecdoche and metonymy are both tropes that replace one word with another. While they are similar, they are distinctly different.

Synecdoche is when you use a part of something to refer to the whole (or vice versa), while metonymy uses a closely related word to replace another word.

For example, referring to a newspaper as “the paper” is synecdoche because the newspaper is made up of paper, while “the news” is metonymy because it is a word closely associated with “newspaper.”

Scribbr’s free Paraphrasing Tool can help you come up with synonyms to help you with using synecdoche in your writing.

Synecdoche and metaphor are both figures of speech, but they are different.

Synecdoche uses a part of something to represent the whole (or vice versa) (e.g., “wheels” to refer to a car). A metaphor compares two seemingly unrelated things by saying one is the other (e.g., “life is a highway”).

Scribbr’s free Paraphrasing Tool can help you come up with synonyms to help you use synecdoche in your writing.

A synonym for trope is motif. Both refer to recurring elements such as symbolism, themes, or character types.

Two other similar terms are cliché, for overused and predictable tropes, and archetype, for universal character patterns.

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Some common romance tropes in literature and movies are:

• Second chance romance. When two characters are given a second chance at love.
• Friends-to-lovers. When two characters are friends for a long time before finally realizing their true feelings for each other.
• Love triangle. When one character is torn between feelings for two other characters.

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Schemes and tropes are both rhetorical devices but serve two different functions.

Tropes are related to the meaning of words (i.e., a word or phrase that has a different meaning to its intended meaning). Schemes are related to word order, syntax, sounds, and letters (i.e., sibilance and alliteration).

Scribbr’s free Paraphrasing Tool can help you come up with the perfect wording for using tropes in your writing.

Semantic change is when the meaning of a word changes over time.

It can broaden where the definition becomes more inclusive, narrow where the definition becomes more specific, or it can shift the meaning entirely. For example, the word “awful” used to mean “worthy of awe” but now means “terrible.”

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The terms malaphor and mixed metaphor are often used interchangeably because they both involve combining phrases in a clashing way. There are some differences between the two, though.

A malaphor unintentionally combines two common phrases or idioms in an unexpected or nonsensical way (e.g., “Let’s burn that bridge when we get to it”).

Mixed metaphors are when two metaphors with clashing meanings are combined. For example, in the following sentences, the ideas of love as a plant and love as a baby bird are combined: “Love is like a seed. You have to water it and wait patiently. After many months, it might finally take flight.”

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Enjambment is important because it dictates the flow and rhythm of a poem. The seamless transitions between lines draw the reader along at the pace the author intended the poem to be read.

It also allows the poet to emphasize certain words. Using enjambment quickens the pace, so when the reader comes to an end-stopped word, it brings attention to it.

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Enjambed lines are lines in poems that continue from one line to the next without pause or punctuation. End-stopped lines pause at the end of a line in a poem, often because of a punctuation mark.

Enjambed lines allow for a more continuous flow throughout the poem, while end-stopped lines make the reader pause.

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Epistrophe and anaphora both repeat words or phrases for emphasis, but they are different.

• Epistrophe repeats a word or phrase at the end of the sentence (e.g., see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil).
• Anaphora repeats a word or phrase at the beginning of the sentence (e.g., Life is short, life is fragile, life is precious).

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Poet Amanda Gorman used anaphora in her inauguration day speech in 2021 when she repeated “We will rise…” in her speech, “The Hill We Climb.”

“We will rise from the golden hills of the West.
We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states.
We will rise from the sun-baked South.”

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Rhetorical devices related to anaphora are epistrophe and symploce.

• Anaphora is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of a sentence.
• Epistrophe is the repetition of a word or phrase at the end of a sentence.
• Symploce is a combination of both repetition at the beginning and end of the sentence.

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Anaphora emphasizes the key message of the repeated word or phrase at the beginning of each sentence. It makes the phrase more impactful, can evoke emotions, and can captivate an audience (e.g., run far, run fast, run free).

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Examples of understatement would be saying “It’s a bit chilly” during a severe snowstorm or saying “He’s not bad at cooking” to describe a world-class chef.

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Understatement and verbal irony are both figures of speech, but they serve different purposes.

• Understatement is when someone intentionally downplays the significance or severity of a situation (e.g., saying that a totaled vehicle “needs a bit of work”).
• Verbal irony is when someone says the exact opposite of what they mean to express humor or sarcasm (e.g., saying “Right on time!” to someone who is late).

Both understatement and verbal irony use roundabout language to express meaning, but they do so in different ways.

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The opposite of understatement is overstatement, which is a rhetorical device that uses deliberate overexaggeration to emphasize a point or evoke emotion (e.g., “I told you a million times!”).

While understatement is used to downplay the severity or significance of something, overstatement is used to make something seem more significant.

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Litotes and verbal irony are both rhetorical devices that use indirect expression, but they are different.

• Litotes uses understatement to downplay a situation or negation to affirm a positive (e.g., “that meal wasn’t bad” to describe a delicious meal).
• Verbal irony uses indirect language to convey contrast, often stating the opposite of what is meant (e.g., “I just love waiting in long lines”).

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An example of litotes is “The weather isn’t exactly tropical today” to describe a very cold day or “This isn’t the fanciest hotel I’ve stayed at” to describe a low-quality hotel.

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Pleonastic is the adjective form of the noun pleonasm. It’s used to describe writing that uses more words than necessary to communicate a message, often creating redundancy (e.g., true fact or mutual cooperation).

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Both pleonasm and tautology are rhetorical devices involving redundant language, but they are distinctly different.

• Pleonasm involves using extra words that don’t add to the message to describe something already implied (e.g., exact same).
• Tautology involves repeating the same message with different words (e.g., repeat that again).

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An example of allusion is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel Tender is the Night which takes its title from John Keats’ poem “Ode to a Nightingale.” The poem is a paean to the beauty of the nightingale and, by extension, nature.

The phrase used by Fitzgerald refers to fleeing from reality to the presence of the nightingale on the “viewless wings” of poetry, and Keats’ declaration “Already with thee! tender is the night.”

Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age novel chronicles the fall of a bright young psychiatrist, Dick Diver, who is sucked into the milieu of American “old money” and spat out when he is of no further use. By the novel’s close, Dick might well echo the poem’s plea:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
…
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow.

To those who know the poem, the allusion to it in the novel’s title adds whole new layers of meaning. Importantly, if you don’t get the allusion, the title of the novel still works, but on a more surface level.

The traditional wedding vow “With all my worldly goods I thee endow” is an example of anastrophe—the changing of word order for emphasis or effect.

The standard word order of an English sentence is subject–verb–object (e.g., “I [subject] play [verb] the guitar [object]”). If you change the word order, then something else has to change for it to retain its meaning (e.g., “The guitar [object] is played by [compound verb in the passive voice] me [subject]”).

Anastrophe is often thought of as poetic, and it is found in older texts, and in more recent ones where the author is looking for a poetic feel to their writing. These include:

• “The road less-traveled,” rather than “The less-traveled road.”
• “Much have I seen and known,” rather than “I have seen and known much.”
• “Hallowed be thy name,” rather than, “Thy name be hallowed.”

Used carefully, anastrophe can be a very effective way of drawing attention to your meaning.

According to some authorities, hyperbaton and anastrophe can be used interchangeably.

For those who consider them different, the hyperbaton will involve putting a word in a different place (e.g., “This, I must see”), and anastrophe involves more significant words like nouns and verbs (e.g., “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment”).

It is unlikely that there will be much argument whichever term you choose to use.

An enthymeme is a kind of incomplete syllogism, where one of the premises is omitted. For example:

• Tiredness kills! [Missing premise: “Stop driving if you are tired.”]
• Don’t get mad, get even. [Missing premise: “Anger is unproductive, but revenge will be satisfying.”]
• The weather in early December was bad, so turnover was below expectations. [Missing premise: “Shoppers are deterred by bad weather.”]

There are several synonyms for circumlocution including:

• Beat about the bush
• Periphrasis
• Verbosity
• Prolixity
• Waffle
• Equivocation
• Evasion
• Prevarication

It’s worth checking their precise meaning in context to make sure you are reflecting the sense you want to convey. The Scribbr Paraphrasing Tool is a useful way of making sure you have a good synonym for circumlocution.

Here are some examples of circumlocution in a sentence:

• Jeff’s problem in meetings was his tendency toward circumlocution; he had to talk around the subject rather than coming to the point.
• The challenge when interviewing politicians is their love of circumlocution instead of direct speaking.
• Liars often use circumlocution to hide their untruths; paradoxically, this is often the most obvious sign of their deceit to the listener.

These are all ways of using circumlocution in a sentence. The Scribbr Grammar Checker can help ensure you’re using words like circumlocution correctly.

Circumlocution can be used in several ways, and for a variety of purposes.

Circumlocution for descriptive writing: “a road neither straight nor crooked, neither level nor hilly, bordered by hedges, trees, and other vegetation, which had entered the blackened-green stage of colour that the doomed leaves pass through on their way to dingy, and yellow, and red.”

This description of the countryside in Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge is quite wordy, but this serves two purposes. First of all, it captures the particular look of the setting he describes to enable the reader to picture the scene. Secondly, the leisurely description matches the measured pace of the characters in this opening chapter.

Circumlocution for evasion: “You see, this is a complicated problem with many angles, and before making a final decision, it’s vital to take into account all points of view. To arrive at a solution that best serves the interests of the people, my administration is dedicated to thoroughly reviewing all relevant evidence and having meaningful conversations with stakeholders.”

Politicians are well known for using circumlocution to avoid giving direct, definitive answers.

The Scribbr Paraphrasing Tool can help you vary the length and style of your sentences.

No, epistrophe is not the same as anaphora, although they both involve repetition.

Anaphora involves the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive lines, phrases, or sentences, especially in poetry, as in this example from T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”:

“After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—”

Epiostrophe also involves repetition of a word or phrase, but in this case it occurs at the end of a line, sentence, or phrase, as in this example also from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”:

“Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head
Should say: ‘That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all.’”

You will also find both anaphora and epistrophe in speeches and other rhetorical texts. They help to add emphasis and to make important points more memorable.

An example of epistrophe is the following excerpt from a speech by Neil Kinnock, the then leader of the UK’s Labour Party, to the conference in 1983:

“We have got to reason with people; we have got to persuade people … Because you are from the people, because you are of the people …”

Epistrophe is a quite common rhetorical device used in speeches. It is also seen widely in song lyrics and poetry, for example from Eminem’s “The Way I Am:”

“And I am whatever you say I am
If I wasn’t, then why would I say I am?
In the paper, the news, every day I am
(Ha) I don’t know, that’s just the way I am.”

In poetry and lyrics, epistrophe not only adds emphasis but can help with rhythm and meter.

Figures of repetition are a subset of rhetorical devices used to make speeches and texts more persuasive. They include:

• Epistrophe: The repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive lines or clauses
• Anadiplosis: The repetition of a word from the end of a sentence at the beginning of the next
• Assonance: The repetition of a vowel sound in adjacent words
• Anaphora: The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive lines or clauses.

Hypophora is when a writer or speaker asks a question, and then immediately supplies the answer.

It is widely used in persuasive writing (e.g., “Why should the government listen to farmers? Because our lives literally depend on them”), speeches (e.g., “So the question is, what should you do now? Vote. And get others to vote. Tell your friends and your family to vote!”), and advertising (e.g., “Why choose Bentons? Because you won’t find better beds than Bentons!”).

Hypophora isn’t the same as a rhetorical question. With a rhetorical question, the answer is implied in the question (e.g., “How many times have I told you to turn off the lights?” where the implied answer is “too many”). With hypophora the questioner supplies the answer explicitly.

The Scribbr Paraphrasing Tool can help you experiment with different writing styles.

An example of chiasmus is Socrates’ quote, “Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.”

This is an example of chiasmus because of its ABBA structure and inverted mirror image ideas.

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English is full of examples of neologisms, as it borrows words from other languages and invents new words of its own.

Sometimes new words are necessary (to describe new things, like “trackpad” or “doom scrolling”), and sometimes new words simply add to the variety of the language (e.g., “doozy” is a new way of saying something is excellent).

Other types of neologism include portmanteau neologisms that take two words and make a new one from them, such as “guesstimate” from “guess” and “estimate,” “brexit” from “British” and “exit,” and “brunch” from “breakfast” and “lunch.”

Texting and social media messaging have led to a whole new lexicon of neologisms, sometimes incorporating numerals into a new type of shorthand (e.g., “gr8” for “great”) and sometimes making new words from abbreviations (e.g., “lolz,” which means “out-loud laughs” and comes from the abbreviation of “laugh out loud” to “lol,” which is then pluralized with a “z” rather than an “s”).

Very often, slang words are neologisms that then become more mainstream neologisms before entering the general lexicon.

An example of this would be “slam dunk,” a slang term from basketball, which over the years has become a mainstream expression meaning to perform a task with masterful ease.

Other examples include “burn,” meaning “humiliate,” and “hip,” meaning “trendy” or “cool” (itself from slang).

Sometimes slang is a type of jargon and, as such, isn’t a neologism but part of a lexicon that is known by a particular group of people. For example, a sound technician might ask a bass guitarist if they want to “DI” their signal, short for “direct injection.” This is a type of slang but is unlikely to become part of English more generally.

“Dub,” on the other hand, which is another recording studio word, has made it into more common usage.

You can use the word invective to describe harsh, critical, unpleasant words, often of a personal nature. Invective can sometimes be seen as sophisticated, or demonstrating a large vocabulary, although some authorities highlight the difference between low invective (e.g., “He’s stupid”) and high invective (e.g., ”He exhibits low electrocortical activity”).

Very often, invective will be applied in a pejorative sense, as a criticism of the person being accused of using invective (e.g., “There’s no room, at this time of heightened tensions, for the senator’s reckless invective”).

You don’t have to look too far to find examples of invective. They are particularly prevalent in literature, politics, the media, and social media. Some examples include:

• President Johnson is reported as saying that Gerald Ford couldn’t “walk and chew gum at the same time.”
• Dorothy Parker said of a novel she was reviewing, “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”
• “You are as useless as the “ueue” in “queue.”
• When Juliet refuses to marry Paris in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, her father explodes in rage: “Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch! / I tell thee what: get thee to church o’ Thursday, / Or never after look me in the face: / Speak not, reply not, do not answer me; / My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest / That God had lent us but this only child; / But now I see this one is one too much, / And that we have a curse in having her: / Out on her, hilding!” —Romeo and Juliet Act III, scene v.

Invective can be smart and sophisticated or simple and direct. Sometimes these are separated into high invective and low invective, respectively.

Flowery language is used to describe language that is overly ornate or too intricate, like a large bouquet of flowers (e.g., “Your elongated politeness is both charmingly, disingenuously disarming, yet at the same time, somewhat oleaginous and unsettling”).

Flowery language (sometimes called purple prose) is not necessarily a negative thing, but the phrase might be used as a criticism in certain circumstances. It is at its most useful when used to help add depth to a character by showing a particular, flowery way of speaking, or to make a description especially sumptuous.

You can use the Scribbr Paraphrasing Tool to help you avoid language that is too flowery or indirect.

Florid means “excessively flowery or ornate” when applied to language. It is used to criticize someone’s style, by suggesting it uses too many words, too much complex vocabulary or syntax, and is unnecessarily obtuse.

Writers might use florid language to help portray a character as ostentatious, or to set a particularly grandiose mood. This is sometimes referred to as purple prose.

In general, though, writers should avoid florid language wherever possible.

With polysyndeton, the writer uses many conjunctions (especially “and” and “or”) in close proximity, and in asyndeton, the conjunctions are omitted.

For example, “Beg, borrow, steal—in fact, do anything you can to get to the game” is an example of asyndeton, whereas “beg, or borrow, or steal, or, in fact, do anything to get to the game” is an example of polysyndeton.

Both are used by careful writers to achieve a particular effect, but they need to be deployed with care.

In John Keats’s “Ode to Autumn,” he uses polysyndeton to bring his description to a close:

“And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”

Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms contains this example of polysyndeton:

“In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels.”

Polysyndeton can move a description along at pace, or it can slow the pace of a passage. Used carefully, it is a useful tool for the writer.

“Time is a great healer” is an example of a truism because it is a phrase that contains a truth but has been overused. It is this overuse that leads to its becoming a truism.

Other examples of truisms include:

• “It is what it is.”
• “Money doesn’t buy happiness.”
• “Patience is a virtue.”
• “You win some, you lose some.”

In general, it is best to avoid truisms unless you are using them to create a particular aspect of a character.

Perhaps the closest synonym for truism is “cliché,” as they share the sense of a saying that has lost its meaning through overuse.

Other words that share some of the meaning of truism include:

• Axiom: A self-evident truth that requires no proof.
• Platitude: A statement or remark that has a moralistic tone but has lost its force through overuse.
• Self-evident: Something that is self-evident needs no explanation.

Other words, such as “commonplace,” “dictum,” “proverb,” and “maxim,” all refer to a saying that is widely accepted as true, but they don’t carry the sense of lost meaning.

The Scribbr paraphrasing tool can help you find the perfect synonym for truism or any other word or phrase.

The main difference between a cliché and a truism is that although all clichés are truisms, not all truisms are clichés.

A truism can describe a widely-accepted truth, without necessarily having lost its impact through overuse.

However, in everyday use, there is little significant difference, and most people will probably use them interchangeably.

Note:

In American English it is normal and acceptable to say, “That is so cliché!” In British English, this would be unusual, and instead you should say, “That is so clichéd!” or “That is such a cliché!”

In everyday use, there is often little difference between aphorism and adage. But there are differences if you are being careful about meaning.

An aphorism is a saying or phrase that is attributed to a specific individual (e.g., Samuel Johnson’s “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”) and that is meant to be thought-provoking or wise.

An adage is a more general expression of a wise and widely accepted sentiment (e.g., “Time is money”).

One way of looking at it is that an adage expresses common sense, while an aphorism should make you think about the idea expressed.

An aphorism is an expression that is concise, thought-provoking, and attributed to an individual (e.g., Shakespeare’s “All that glisters is not gold”).

An idiom is a saying where the meaning of the phrase is different from the surface meaning of the words (e.g., “She is comfortable in her own skin”).

There are many examples of aphorisms, including:

• “Everyone has a plan: until they get punched in the face.”—Mike Tyson
• “The greatest glory in living lies not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall.”—Nelson Mandela
• “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”—Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
• “What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.”—Samuel Johnson
• “Money doesn’t talk, it swears.”—Bob Dylan
• “Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”—G. K. Chesterton
• “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”—C. S. Lewis
• “Persons with any weight of character carry, like planets, their atmospheres along with them in their orbits.”—Thomas Hardy

You can use aphorism in a sentence whenever you want to describe a saying that is concise, though-provoking, and attributed to a person:

• “G. K. Chesterton has been called the ‘apostle of common sense’ and is known for the wit and wisdom of his aphorisms.”
• “An aphorism requires concise language, wisdom, and a touch of mystery; no wonder they are a dying art.”

“Samuel Johnson’s Augustan mind was perfectly suited to coining the aphorisms for which he is famous.”

You will find examples of zeugma in literature, television, film, and popular music. Zeugma is a literary device where one word (often a verb) will govern, or apply to, two or more different words (e.g., Alanis Morissette’s “You held your breath and the door for me”).

Other examples of zeugma include:

• “He carried a strobe light and the responsibility for the lives of his men.”—The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
• “The theme of the egg hunt is ‘learning is delightful and delicious’—as, by the way, am I.’”—The West Wing by Aaron Sorkin
• “There was music in the cafés at night
• And revolution in the air”—”Tangled Up In Blue” by Bob Dylan

“They covered the earth with their shields and themselves with glory.”—The Iliad by Homer

You can use verbosity in a sentence to say that someone’s writing or speaking is too wordy:

“I have nothing against complicated sentences, but this is nothing but pointless verbosity!”

“Keep your writing as simple and to-the-point as possible and avoid verbosity at all costs.”

“Inexperienced writers often suffer from verbosity, mistaking it for a show of skill. The real skill, however, lies in writing clear, concise, and uncomplicated text.”

You can use Scribbr’s free paraphrasing tool to help you avoid verbosity.

There are several possible antonyms of verbosity, including:

• Brevity: Meaning shortness of speech or writing.
• Conciseness/concision: Expressing much in a few words.
• Succinctness: Like concise, using few words to express much.
• Terseness: Using few words, to the point of not saying enough.
• Laconic: Using very few words.
• Pithy: Using few words, with a sense of being pointedly humorous or critical.

The Scribbr paraphrasing tool is a great way of finding the antonym of verbosity and discovering new ways of phrasing your writing.

There are no exact synonyms for juxtaposition, as it has a particular meaning on its own, but there are some near-synonyms. These include:

• Antithesis
• Contrast
• Opposition

Juxtaposition is a useful word because it carries a meaning of setting something alongside another, dissimilar thing in order to emphasize the difference. For example, you can juxtapose something in art by placing a dark object next to a light one.

Scribbr’s Paraphrasing Tool can help you find alternative ways to express your meaning.

A juxtaposition places two things next to each other to emphasize their differences (e.g., “after the fire there came a still, small voice”), whereas an oxymoron is a description which is self-contradictory (e.g., “there was a deafening silence”).

A juxtaposition emphasizes an attribute of something by placing it alongside something that is very different (e.g., “Against the backdrop of the Rockies, the wagon looked tiny, fragile, and immensely vulnerable”). 

Antithesis, on the other hand, is an idea or statement that is set up to oppose its opposite (e.g., “The idea of external regulation is the antithesis of the free market”).

Here are some examples of juxtaposition in a sentence:

• When seen in juxtaposition with the vastness of the ocean, even the largest warship seems tiny.
• The angular modern design of Pyramide du Louvre is deliberately set in juxtaposition with the grand building’s ornate beauty.
• Spenser uses juxtaposition to show the knight’s courage when he faces the incomparably huge dragon in combat.

The Scribbr Grammar Checker can help ensure you’re using words like juxtaposition correctly in your writing.

Calling an accountant a “bean counter” is an example of dysphemism. A dysphemism is a negative, derogatory, or insulting word or phrase used to replace a more standard term.

Dysphemisms are used to express strong emotions like anger or frustration (e.g., describing an administrator as a “pencil pusher,” or a hotel as a “hellhole”). They also have a humorous side (e.g., sending a birthday card calling the recipient an “old codger”).

Other common examples include:

• Quack or sawbones [doctor]
• Hack or scribbler [journalist]
• Ambulance chaser [lawyer]
• Gym bunny [fitness enthusiast]
• Shrink [psychiatrist]

The opposite of euphemism is dysphemism. It is much less common and it means using a word or phrase for something that is negative or critical (e.g., “bean counter” for an accountant).

Sometimes it is used humorously (e.g., calling a friend an “old codger” on their birthday), but most often it is negative and sometimes hurtful.

Some common examples include:

• Quack or sawbones [doctor]
• Hack or scribbler [journalist]
• Ambulance chaser [lawyer]
• Gym bunny [fitness enthusiast]
• Shrink [psychiatrist]

“Fear stalked the village as night fell” is an example of personification. Fear is an emotion, so it cannot “stalk a village or anywhere else. This is also an example of how personification can bring a description to life.

Other examples of personification are:

• The cold slapped me in the face.
• As I passed through the kitchen, the ice cream called to me from the freezer.
• The cozy cottage embraced me in its warmth.

Authors use personification to add depth or interest to their descriptions or narrative. Instead of writing “The villagers became afraid,” they might write “Fear stalked the village.”

By giving “fear” the attributes of a menacing hunter, the atmosphere in the village is more strikingly conveyed.

Personification can also be used for humor. In Three Men and a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome’s narrator describes his dog, Montmorency:

“To hang about a stable, and collect a gang of the most disreputable dogs to be found in the town, and lead them out to march round the slums to fight other disreputable dogs, is Montmorency’s idea of “life;” and so, as I before observed, he gave to the suggestion of inns, and pubs., and hotels his most emphatic approbation.”

If the description of Montmorency were sustained throughout the novel, then it could be regarded as anthropomorphism, where animals are portrayed as if they are human.

An example of personification in poetry can be found in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The first dialogue between the soon-to-be lovers is in the form of a sonnet, shared between them. In it, we find this example of personification:

“If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.”

Romeo calls his lips “two blushing pilgrims,” which helps him to coyly express his attraction to Juliet.

T. S. Eliot personifies evening in this passage from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:”

“And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.”

Here are some songs with personification:

“The distant echo of faraway voices
Boarding faraway trains …
The glazed dirty steps … partially naked …” —“Down in the Tube Station at Midnight” by The Jam.

Personification is present when “voices” board the trains and when “steps” are said to be “partially naked.”

In his song “Visions of Johanna,” Bob Dylan personifies night to add mystery to the scene he is setting:

“Ain’t it just like the night
To play tricks when you’re trying to be so quiet?”

The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” can be seen as an extended metaphor where human evil is personified as the devil, responsible for “(stealing) many a man’s soul and faith.” Having detailed a list of historical events being claimed by the narrator, he eventually answers the “what’s my name?” refrain with the explanation “I tell you one time, you’re to blame.” —“Sympathy for the Devil,” by Mick Jagger/Keith Jones.

The personification helps to make this a thought-provoking and challenging song.

“I’ve told you a million times not to exaggerate!” is an example of hyperbole used for humorous effect. Hyperbole means excessive exaggeration, usually for dramatic or comic effect. It comes from the Greek words “hyper-” meaning “excessive” or “over” and “balleini” meaning “throw.”

Hyperbole can be used to express extreme emotion and is never meant to be taken literally. Some examples of hyperbole expressing extreme emotion include:

• “He was incandescent with rage.” [extreme anger]
• “We laughed until our sides split.” [extreme enjoyment]
• “They were walking on air.” [extreme joy]

You will also find examples of hyperbole in advertising:

• “The ultimate driving machine” [BMW]
• “Kills germs dead” [Domestos]
• “Impossible is nothing” [Adidas]
• “Refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach” [Heineken]

Hyperbole is pronounced “hy-pur-buh-lee” [haɪˈpɜrbəli] in American English and “hy-puh-buh-lee” [haɪˈpɜːbəlɪ] in British English (the difference is quite subtle).

Hyperbole is the use of extreme exaggeration to emphasize the emotional intensity of a situation.

Although there isn’t really a word that means exactly the same as hyperbole, there are a number of synonyms, including:

• Exaggeration
• Overstatement
• Elaboration
• Embellishment
• Amplification
• Hype
• Magnification

The Scribbr paraphrasing tool is a great way of finding synonyms for hyperbole, as well as helping you to rephrase your writing.

Hyperbole is a popular technique in songs. Here are some examples:

• “The sky is falling, I’m feeling all alone.” —“Rolling in the Deep” by Adele.
• “You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.” —“Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan.
• “Oh, well, I’ll look at you and say, ‘It’s the happiest that I’ve ever been.’” —“5 Years Time” by Noah and the Whale.
• “When you lot get out we’re gonna hit the town.” —“Stay Free” by The Clash.
• “His soul’s escaping through this hole that is gaping.” —“Lose Yourself” by Eminem.

An example of how to use foreshadowing in a sentence is:

“In Frank McCourt’s memoir, ‘Angela’s Ashes,’ he uses foreshadowing to hint at the hardships of his childhood in the very first sentence: ‘My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born.’”

Other sentences that use foreshadowing include:

“Authors use foreshadowing to give subtle clues about what will happen later in the work.”

“Sometimes foreshadowing is actually quite explicit, as with the opening lines of ‘Chronicle of a Death Foretold’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: ‘On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning …’”

There are many examples of foreshadowing in literature, such as this prophecy given to Macbeth by one of the weird sisters:

“All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!”—Macbeth by William Shakespeare.

Sometimes a work’s title can be an example of foreshadowing, for example Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold, or Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

The opening of Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes includes this example of foreshadowing that hints at the terrible circumstances about to be retold: “My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born.”

One powerful example of foreshadowing in the opening sequence of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now! 

We see a montage of a napalm attack on the treeline, with Captain Willard’s face or the ceiling fan superimposed. All of this is backed by stylized helicopter sounds and “The End” by The Doors.

These images and sounds foreshadow one of the major scenes, as well as creating an appropriately apocalyptic vision that represents Coppola’s view of the US involvement in Vietnam.

Christopher Nolan’s Memento, with its plot-in-reverse structure, provides constant foreshadowing as the details of the action are revealed in reverse order.

In Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, Chief Brody trips on a pressurized air tank early in the film. Later, that same tank becomes instrumental in his battle for survival.

Foreshadowing is a powerful tool for movie-makers, engaging the audience and keeping their attention.

Anadiplosis is a figure of speech that describes ending one sentence or clause with a word or phrase which is then repeated at the start of the next clause or sentence. (e.g., “Fair is foul, and foul is fair”).

You will find anadiplosis in speeches, popular music, literature, and film. These are some examples:

“What I present here is what I remember of the letter, and what I remember of the letter I remember verbatim (including that awful French).” —Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” —Inauguration speech, by John F. Kennedy

“And God said

Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only

The wind will listen.” —“Ash Wednesday” by T. S. Eliot

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” —The Bible, John 1:5 (New International Version)

The name mondegreen is actually an example of a mondegreen itself. The author Sylvia Wright misheard the lyrics of an old Scottish song, “They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray and laid him on the green” and thought that the song said that both the Earl and “Lady Mondegreen” had been slain.

Other examples include “We built this city on sausage rolls” (“We built this city on rock and roll” in the song by Starship) or “Take your teeth out” (“Chiqitita,” by Abba)

An eggcorn is the mishearing of a word or phrase that sounds like the original but is mistaken (e.g., “For all intensive purposes” instead of “For all intents and purposes”), where the misheard version makes sense, but not humorously so.

A mondegreen makes no sense, but the result is some amusing nonsense (e.g., “While shepherds washed their socks by night,” instead of “While shepherds watched their flocks by night”).

A spoonerism involves mixing up the initial letters of two or more words, whereas a malapropism involves substituting an incorrect word in a phrase.

For example, saying “Which one of us, in their heart, has not felt a half-warmed fish” instead of “half-formed wish” is an example of a spoonerism. An example of malapropism would be saying, “He was the very pineapple of brilliance” instead of “pinnacle.”

Other related forms of misspeaking include eggcorns, mondegreens, and Freudian slips.

Yes, the Scribbr Paragraph Rewriter is absolutely free to use. You can access its features and benefits without any cost. Enjoy rewriting your paragraphs effortlessly with our free tool!

Yes, our paragraph rewriter can enhance the readability and uniqueness of your content by providing alternative wording and sentence structures.

Alongside the paragraph rewriter, Scribbr offers a range of other tools designed to elevate your content such as the paraphrasing tool and grammar checker. In addition to that, we also provide tools such as a citation generator, plagiarism checker and more writing tools. These tools work together to ensure that your content is not only well-written and polished but also original, properly cited, and academically sound.

When performing the Scribbr-style Paper Formatting Service, your Scribbr expert will apply our standard formatting guidelines, which are based on our experience and best practices. This service therefore includes:

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• Adjusting the format of the bibliography and checking reference entries. If you are interested in this, you can book our Citation Editing service.

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The aim of the Paper Formatting service, both for Scribbr-style and APA-style, is to create a consistent layout that looks clean and coherent. To achieve this, we follow the information you provide during the upload process of your document, as well as standard academic guidelines.

To ensure that your formatting expert translates your wishes correctly, please indicate the following things in your booking:

• The editing style (APA or Scribbr-style)
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Please note that, for the APA style, we focus on checking and perfecting your document rather than implementing the style from scratch.

We also advise that you hand in your paper to us with as little formatting as possible.

Choose APA style, if you strictly want or need to follow APA guidelines. APA provides clear guidelines as to how to format a paper. Here’s an overview of this style:

• APA is most frequently used by writers and students in social sciences, business, and nursing
• Used in academic journals
• You have limited options. For example:
  • the font must be selected from a specific list
  • the text must be left-aligned and double-spaced
  • headings must be formatted in a very specific way
  • tables have a set format
• Edits are made with the track changes function, so you can learn from your formatting expert

Choose Scribbr-style, if you want our editors to tidy up your own formatting. Here’s an overview of this style:

• This is a custom formatting style based on your preferences
• You have the freedom to choose. For example:
  • pick your favourite font (type, size, colour)
  • justify your text
  • personalize your headings (size, colour, etc.)´
  • select a style for page numbering
• Tables won’t be adjusted in content, but captions will be formatted
• Edits are made directly without the track changes function
• Read more about what this service includes, here.

Please note: If your paper mostly follows APA guidelines, but you want to tweak some elements (e.g., you want numbered headings), choose Scribbr-style.

Yes. If you want your paper to be formatted based on your individual wishes, you can indicate your preferences during the upload process. We will then create a custom formatting for you, such as the style of page numbers, a font type or size, and the type of line spacing you want. We do, however, have certain limitations to the possibilities we can offer. For example, we cannot work with different font colors or with specific font types that are not native to Microsoft Word.

Additionally, it is not possible to upload an additional document with guidelines you may have received from your university. You may indicate any additional wishes in the free text box during the upload process.

For more information, you can find formatting templates according to the most common formatting styles here in our knowledge base.

This depends on your order. If you book the Paper Formatting service as a standalone service, you can indicate which pages you’d like to have formatted during the upload process.

If you book the Paper Formatting service together with the Proofreading & Editing service, we will format all the pages of your document.

Generally speaking, we recommend getting your entire document formatted, as our experts will make sure that the document is neat and consistent in its layout.

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Yes, our sentence rewriter can enhance the readability and uniqueness of your content by providing alternative wording and sentence structures.

Alongside the paragraph rewriter, Scribbr offers a range of other tools designed to elevate your content such as the paraphrasing tool and grammar checker. In addition to that, we also provide tools such as a citation generator, plagiarism checker and more writing tools. These tools work together to ensure that your content is not only well-written and polished but also original, properly cited, and academically sound.

Yes, the Rewording Tool is free to use. Access all its features and benefits at no cost. Reword your paragraphs effortlessly with our free tool.

Yes, our tool enhances readability and uniqueness by providing alternative wording and sentence structures.

In addition to the Rewording Tool, Scribbr offers other tools to elevate your content, such as a paraphrasing tool and grammar checker. We also provide a citation generator, plagiarism checker, and more. These tools ensure your content is well-written, polished, original, properly cited, and academically sound.

“Sullabus” is not a word. It’s a common misspelling of the word “syllabus.”

When you see “sullabus” written somewhere, it’s most likely a typo because the U and Y keys are right next to each other on a keyboard.

Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker will notice and correct typos like this in all of your online documents.

Mice is the correct plural of mouse whether you’re talking about a computer accessory or a hairy rodent. Mices is not a word and is incorrect in every context.

Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker can help you use the correct plural forms of words.

Both mice and mouses are acceptable plural forms of mouse in the context of the computer accessory (e.g., “The computer store got a shipment of mice/mouses today”).

Mice is an irregular plural noun that uses irregular pluralization rules, while mouses uses the regular pluralization rules of adding “-s” or “-es” to the end of the singular form. After the invention of the computer mouse in the 1960s, it was decided that mouses is also an acceptable plural form along with the typical plural mice.

Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker ensures you use the correct plural forms words.

Mouses is only correct as a plural of mouse in the context of computer accessories. Mouses is incorrect in the context of hairy rodents regardless of the number of mice.

Mices is not a word and is incorrect in every context.

Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker ensures you use the correct plural forms of words.

The plural of thesis is not thesises because thesis is an irregular plural noun and doesn’t follow the regular pluralization rules, which add “-s” or “-es” to the end of the singular to form the plural.

Thesis is a Greek-derived irregular plural that follows Greek pluralization rules, which change the “-is” at the end of the singular form to “-es” in the plural. So, the plural of thesis is theses.

Use Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker to ensure you use the correct noun forms in your online documents.

Thesis is singular, and the plural of thesis is theses.

Thesis is an irregular plural noun that doesn’t follow the regular pluralization rules of adding “-s” or “-es” to the singular to form the plural.

Use Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker to ensure you use the correct noun forms in your online documents.

Sheep is both singular and plural. Sheep is an irregular plural noun called a zero plural, which is where the word remains the same whether it’s the singular or plural form.

Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker will ensure you’re using the plural of sheep correctly.

A zero plural is a type of irregular plural noun that stays the same whether you refer to the singular or plural (e.g., sheep/sheep and aircraft/aircraft).

Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker will ensure you’re using the correct singular or plural form in all of your online documents.

Biases are preconceived notions or opinions that influence how one thinks and acts, often in a subjective way. They tend to come from unconscious assumptions from past personal experiences and cultural norms and can influence our thoughts and behaviors in a variety of contexts.

Biases is the plural form of bias. There are many different types of bias that are important to identify in research settings, and biases are also frequently evident in everyday life.

Scribbr’s free Paraphrasing Tool can help you choose the right words in your writing.

The pronunciation of biases is [bahy-uh-siz]. Biases is the plural of bias and is a regular plural noun, formed by adding “-es” to the base word. Its ending is pronounced like other regular plural nouns (e.g., “dresses,” “foxes”), not like the irregular plurals theses or diagnoses.

Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker will ensure you’re using plural nouns correctly.

Dices is a word, but it’s neither the correct plural of dice nor die. Dices is the third-person singular form of the verb “to dice,” which means to cut something into small cubes, most often in the context of cooking.

Dice is the correct plural form of the singular word die.

Use Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker to ensure you always use the correct form in your writing.

Dice is the plural form of the word die, which is singular. Some people wonder what the plural of dice is without realizing that “dice” is, in fact, already the plural of “die,” which is singular.

“Dice” is an irregular plural noun that doesn’t follow regular pluralization rules of simply adding “-s” or “-es” to the end of the singular form, which is why “dies” and “dices” are incorrect.

Use Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker to ensure you always use the correct form in your writing.

The correct spelling is S-Y-L-L-A-B-U-S. Be careful not to confuse it with common misspellings like “syllabys” or “syllubus.”

The plural of syllabus is “syllabi” or “syllabuses.”

Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker notices and corrects common misspellings and typos like this in all of your online documents.

The plural of diagnosis is diagnoses, not diagnosises. Diagnoses is considered an irregular plural, which doesn’t follow the pluralization rules of regular plural nouns.

Diagnosis is a Greek-derived word, meaning it follows the Greek rules of pluralization, so the “-is” is changed to “-es.”

Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker can help you make sure you’re using the correct plural forms of words.

“Syllabys” is a common misspelling of the noun “syllabus.” The correct spelling is S-Y-L-L-A-B-U-S.

It is commonly typed like this because it’s either a misspelling (because of a mispronunciation of the word) or a typo (because the U and Y keys are right next to each other).

Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker will notice and correct typos like this in all of your online documents.

Some synonyms for the word “hypothesis” include:

• Premise
• Presumption
• Assumption
• Supposition
• Theory

Scribbr’s free Paraphrasing Tool will help you easily find synonyms for any word you use in your writing.

Yes, hypothesis is a word. It refers to an assumption or explanation based on limited evidence and is the starting point for further experimentation.

The plural of hypothesis is hypotheses.

Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker can help ensure all your words are correct no matter what you’re writing.

The word cactus isn’t listed in the thesaurus, as it refers to a very specific type of plant.

However, some possible synonyms that refer to very similar types of plants are succulent, prickly pear, and yucca.

Scribbr’s free Paraphrasing Tool can help you easily find the right synonyms for the words in your writing.

The word cactus is spelled C-A-C-T-U-S.

Cactus has two correct plural forms; one plural of cactus is spelled C-A-C-T-I, and the other plural version is spelled C-A-C-T-U-S-E-S.

Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker is perfect for ensuring everything is spelled correctly no matter what you’re writing.

On a graph, the vertical axis is called the y-axis, and the horizontal axis is called the x-axis.

The x– and y–axes intersect with each other to form a coordinate plane (also called a Cartesian plane). The Cartesian plane is used to plot points, lines, and curves in algebra, geometry, and calculus.

Each point on the coordinate plane is represented by an ordered pair of numbers displayed as (x,y), where x is the horizontal position (measured along the x-axis), and y is the vertical position (measured along the y-axis).

Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker will ensure you’re using the correct form of the word axis.

The word axis is singular; the plural form is axes.

Axes is a Latin-derived irregular plural noun and doesn’t follow the pluralization rules of regular plural nouns. Instead of adding “-s” or “-es” to the end of the word like regular plural nouns, you change the “-is” at the end of the word to “-es” to form the plural.

You can use Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker to ensure you’re using the correct plural of axis.

The plural of axis is axes, not “axises.”

The word axes is considered an irregular plural noun and is derived from Latin origins. This means it follows the Latin rules of pluralization, not the regular pluralization rules of adding “-s” or “-es.”

Latin-derived words that end in “-is” are made plural by changing the “-is” to “-es.”

Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker can help you make sure you’re using the correct plural forms of words.

The word analysis is a singular noun. The plural of analysis is analyses.

Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker can help you make sure you’re using the correct plural forms of words.

The plural of analysis is analyses because it’s an irregular plural that doesn’t follow the pluralization rules of regular plural nouns. It’s grammatically incorrect to simply add an “-s” or “-es” to “analysis” and call it “analysises.”

“Analysis” is an irregular plural that follows the Greek pluralization rules, meaning you must change the “-is” at the end of the singular form to “-es” to form the plural.

Scribbr’s free Grammar Checker can help you make sure you’re using the correct plural forms of words.

Diagnosis is the singular form. The plural of diagnosis is diagnoses.

Diagnosis is not a zero plural noun, which is a word that remains the same in both the singular and plural forms. Diagnosis is a Greek-derived word that changes the “-is” in the singular to “-es” in the plural.

Scribbr’s Grammar Checker can help you fix errors with plural forms in your writing.

The Chat PDF tool allows you to interact with and extract information from PDF documents using AI. You can ask questions or request specific details, and the tool will provide accurate, relevant responses in real time.

Yes, the Chat PDF tool is completely free. You can use it without any restrictions or fees.

No, there is no need to sign up or create an account. Simply upload your PDF document and start using the tool immediately.

Upload your PDF, then ask questions or request specific information. The AI analyzes the document and provides instant, precise answers based on the content of your PDF.

You can upload a wide range of PDF documents, including papers, reports, notes, and more.

Yes, the Chat tool is suitable for a variety of purposes, including academic research. It allows you to analyze documents, making it a useful resource for quickly extracting and understanding key information.

Our Essay Checker can detect most grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes. That said, we can’t guarantee 100% accuracy. 

Absolutely! The Essay Checker is particularly useful for non-native English speakers, as it can detect mistakes that may have gone unnoticed.

The exact time depends on the length of your document, but, in most cases it doesn’t take more than a minute.

The Scribbr Plagiarism Checker compares your work against a database with billions of sources. If you purchase a plagiarism check, a self-plagiarism check is included.

The Scribbr Self-Plagiarism Checker uses sources that you upload yourself, such as previously submitted work or the work of your peers. Copying or paraphrasing too closely from unpublished works is still plagiarism, and it’s easy to do accidentally.

It’s easy! You can add sources to the Scribbr Self-Plagiarism Checker in the following formats:

• .pdf files
• .docx or .doc files
• .txt files

Note that if a document has a different file format from those listed above, we recommend converting it to .pdf or .docx.

You can also copy any text passages (e.g., from a website) directly into the checker.

The Scribbr Self-Plagiarism Checker is a unique plagiarism checker that allows you to customize the sources you check.

Sources you can add to the Self-Plagiarism Checker include:

• Your own past work
• Unpublished work from your fellow students
• Unpublished PDFs
• Internet pages (copied and pasted directly into the checker)

Yes, it can. The AI has been trained on a big dataset, so technical or complex data won’t be a problem for the text summarizer.

The text summarizer is accessible on both desktop and mobile.

This text summarizer can condense long text within seconds.

At the moment, a maximum of 600 words can be summarized at once, within a few seconds. Want to summarize more? Just paste another block of text. There’s no limit on how much text you can summarize with our text summarizer.

The text summarizer can give you a longer or shorter summary, depending on your wishes. Want a more detailed summary? Just adjust the summary length at the top.

The free report tells you if your text contains potential plagiarism and other writing issues. The premium report gives you the resources you need to review issues in detail and resolve them.

Scribbr’s free plagiarism checker estimates the risk of plagiarism by calculating the percentage of text in your document that’s similar to other sources.

A moderate or high risk of plagiarism means that the plagiarism software detected several similarities worth reviewing.

Note that similarities are not necessarily plagiarism. You will need to decide on your own whether your text needs revision or citation.

Information can often be found in more than one place. For this reason, other sources citing the same information you used can come up in your Sources Overview.

The important thing is to make sure you’ve cited the source of the material. Try to find the original source, but if you can’t find it, it’s best to cite the source where you found the information.

Extensive testing proves that Scribbr’s plagiarism checker is one of the most accurate plagiarism checkers on the market in 2024.

The software detects everything from exact word matches to synonym swapping. It also has access to a full range of source types, including open- and restricted-access journal articles, theses and dissertations, websites, PDFs, and news articles.

No, you will never get a 100% match because the Scribbr Plagiarism Checker does not store documents in a public database.

No, the Self-Plagiarism Checker does not store your document in any public database.

In addition, you can delete all your personal information and documents from the Scribbr server as soon as you’ve received your plagiarism report.

Are you not satisfied with the results of the Scribbr Plagiarism Checker, or are you experiencing difficulties with the document? Find out what to do when…

• you cannot see your plagiarism results: Try opening the results in Google Chrome, or request a PDF copy.
• you see an error message in the header of your document: Don’t worry – you can ignore the error message.
• you see “Error! Bookmark not defined” in your table of contents: Don’t worry – this error doesn’t affect your results.
• you are not satisfied with your similarity score: The similarity score shows you what percentage of your text the software found in sources in the database. That means we cannot change your score.However, you can reduce the similarities yourself by following our simple guides to interpreting the report and avoiding plagiarism. Then the similarity score of your submitted paper will be much lower. If you want to see your new score after following these guides, you can purchase a second check.
• you are not 100% happy with our service: Read about our 100% happiness guarantee and fill in the feedback form. We will contact you within 24 hours.

If you copied a fragment from a source and the Plagiarism Check did not find it, there are four possible explanations.

You paraphrased the fragment

If you paraphrased the original text by using different words and/or changing their order, the fragment will no longer be detected by the plagiarism software.

You can test this by searching the fragment in double quotation marks on Google. If no results are returned, you successfully paraphrased. Note that you still need to cite the source of the original idea.

However, if Google did return a result but our software did not highlight it, this might mean that…

The “Exclude Small Matches” number is set too high

By default, the plagiarism report shows similarities of 9 words or more. If the fragment you copied is shorter than that, it will not be shown in the report.

You can manually adjust the minimum length in order to show shorter similarities. Find out how to do that here.

Your document was not readable

If you uploaded a PDF file, it is possible that your document is not machine readable or was converted to an image instead of text. As a result, no similarities will be found.

To test if the text in your PDF is readable, you can copy and paste the document into a text editor (e.g. Microsoft Word, Notepad, TextEdit). If the text editor shows the same text as the PDF, then the text will also be readable by our plagiarism software.

Yes, Scribbr offers a limited free version of its plagiarism checker. It uses the industry-leading plagiarism detection technology and has access to most content databases.

Run a free plagiarism check

Scribbr uses advanced plagiarism detection technology similar to the software used by most universities and publishers, ensuring you receive the same or very similar results.

The add-on AI detector is powered by Scribbr’s proprietary software and is capable of detecting texts generated by ChatGPT, Perplexity and other generative AI tools with high accuracy.

Your document will be compared to the world’s largest and fastest-growing content database, containing over:

• 99.3 billion current and historical webpages.
• 8 million publications from more than 1,700 publishers such as Springer, IEEE, Elsevier, Wiley-Blackwell, and Taylor & Francis.

Scribbr’s plagiarism checker offers complete support for 20 languages, including English, Spanish, German, Arabic, and Dutch. The add-on AI Detector is available for English, Spanish, German, French and Dutch texts.

The complete list of supported languages:

• Arabic
• Bosnian
• Croatian
• Czech
• Danish
• Dutch
• English
• Finnish
• French
• German
• Greek
• Italian
• Norwegian
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Russian
• Serbian
• Spanish
• Swedish
• Turkish

If you purchased a Plagiarism Checker in combination with our Proofreading & Editing service, you can start the Plagiarism Checker anytime at your convenience.

Scribbr recommends using the Plagiarism Checker after you have received your document and gone through all of the edits. Then you can upload the most recent version of your paper and avoid having to manually transfer changes from one document to another.

No, your teacher, professor, or admissions officer will not be able to see your submissions at Scribbr because they’re not added to any shared or public databases.

Your writing stays private. Your submissions to Scribbr are not published in any public database, so no other plagiarism checker (including those used by universities) will see them.

Scribbr uses similar plagiarism software to most universities, providing the same or very similar results.

However, universities may check your work against private student paper databases, which Scribbr can’t access, possibly leading to small differences.

To help, Scribbr offers a free Self-Plagiarism Checker add-on, allowing you to manually upload your source documents to ensure you haven’t accidentally plagiarized.

Yes, if you are interested in buying more than 25 plagiarism checks, please fill in this form. We will get back to you within the next two working days!

For questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to info@scribbr.com.

Review every similarity for plagiarism, and decide whether or not you need to revise your text.

1. Review the similarity, and think about whether or not the match makes sense to you.
2. Revise the snippet if necessary. You can do so by paraphrasing or quoting. Always cite your sources.

If you accidentally uploaded the wrong document to the Plagiarism Checker, Scribbr will not refund you for this check or give you a discount for another check. The check starts automatically upon payment, which is why we cannot change your document anymore.

A similarity score of 0% means that our plagiarism software didn’t find any similarities between your document and other documents in our database.

On average, only 1 out of 150 students achieve this. Congratulations!

Your work should not contain any plagiarism. Even if your score is 1%, you will need to review each similarity and decide whether it’s necessary to revise your work.

But contrary to popular belief, plagiarism checkers work by detecting similarities, not plagiarism. Not all similarities are plagiarism. Similarities can be:

• Properly cited quotes
• In-text citations or your reference list entries
• Commonly used phrases

What should I do with a found similarity?

Your similarity score shows you what percentage of your text is found within sources in the comparison database.

For example, if your score is 15%, then 15% of the content you wrote is unoriginal, as it matches text in the database.

You will have to review each similarity and decide whether or not you need to revise your work.

What is a good score? How do I update my work?

If you’re unable to view the Plagiarism Check results in your browser, please try the following two solutions:

1. Are you using Google Chrome?

We’ve found that using Google Chrome resolves most issues related to the results page. First, try using Google Chrome to open your Plagiarism Check results. If you are already using Google Chrome, or if this solution does not work, then proceed to the second solution.

2. Contact support for a PDF copy of the results.

If the first solution doesn’t work, you can contact our support team via chat or email and request a PDF copy of the results via email. This way, you can still review and process the results. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Scribbr checks your document for plagiarism only once. You can use the “exclude text” feature to exclude similarities that you’ve resolved, which automatically updates your similarity score.

If you would like to recheck your entire document, you can purchase a new plagiarism check at the regular price. We don’t currently offer a subscription service.

Sometimes a quote is marked as a similarity by the Scribbr Plagiarism Checker. A quote is not a form of plagiarism, but you do have to ensure you have properly cited the original source.

If you’re certain that you have correctly quoted and cited, you can exclude the similarity from your plagiarism score.

Below we briefly explain the rules for quoting in APA Style.

Quotes under 40 words

When quoting fewer than 40 words, use double quotation marks around the quote, and provide an APA in-text citation that includes the author, the year, and a page number or range.

Quotes over 40 words

If the quote contains 40 words or more, format it as a block quote, which begins on a new line and is indented in its entirety. Include an in-text citation after the period.

The Scribbr Plagiarism Checker is able to work with the following file formats:

• Doc
• Docx
• Pdf
• Odt

The format you use doesn’t influence the final result. If you’re working with a format not listed here, we recommend converting it prior to submitting.

At the moment we do not offer a monthly subscription for the Scribbr Plagiarism Checker. This means you won’t be charged on a recurring basis – you only pay for what you use. We believe this provides you with the flexibility to use our service as frequently or infrequently as you need, without being tied to a contract or recurring fee structure.

You can find an overview of the prices per document here:

Please note that we can’t give refunds if you bought the plagiarism check thinking it was a subscription service as communication around this policy is clear throughout the order process.

Scribbr Plagiarism Checker

Our support team is here to help you daily via chat, WhatsApp, email, or phone between 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. CET.

Yes! Our personal statement editors can help you reduce your word count by up to 25%. You can choose to receive this feedback through direct edits or suggestions in comments – just select your choice when you upload your personal statement.

Alternatively, you can try using QuillBot’s Word Counter to track the word count and identify the readability level of your text. Our paraphrasing tool can also help to make your writing more concise.

Our APA experts default to APA 7 for editing and formatting. For the Citation Editing Service you are able to choose between APA 6 and 7.

It is not necessary to reserve a time slot for your edit. As soon as your document is ready to be proofread, you can upload it at any time via our website. Based on your chosen deadline, our editor(s) will then proofread your document within 24 hours, 3 days, or 7 days.

If you are unsure about the availability of our services or are planning to upload a very large document (>13,000 words) with a 24 hour deadline, we recommend that you contact us beforehand via chat or email.

Scribbr is following the guidelines announced by the WHO (World Health Organization). As an online platform, all our services remain available, and we will continue to help students as usual.

Can I still place an order? Will my order be completed within the deadline?
Yes, you can still place orders and orders will be delivered within the agreed upon deadline. Scribbr is an online platform – our proofreading & editing services are provided by editors working remotely from all over the world. This means Scribbr can guarantee that we will process your order with the same diligence and professionalism as always. The same holds true for our Plagiarism Checker.

Can I still contact customer support?
Yes. Our support team is available from 09.00 to 23.00 CET and happy to answer any questions you might have!

Yes, if your document is longer than 20,000 words, you will get a sample of approximately 2,000 words. This sample edit gives you a first impression of the editor’s editing style and a chance to ask questions and give feedback.

How does the sample edit work?

You will receive the sample edit within 12 hours after placing your order. You then have 24 hours to let us know if you’re happy with the sample or if there’s something you would like the editor to do differently.

Read more about how the sample edit works

When you upload a large document (20,000+ words), we will ask your editor to send a sample edit of approximately 2,000 words as soon as possible. This sample edit gives you a first impression of your editor’s editing style and what you can expect from the service. You will receive it within 12 hours after uploading your order.

Why do we provide you with a sample edit?

We always aim to make you 100% happy, and Proofreading & Editing is a complex service. We want to make sure that our editing style meets your expectations before the editor improves your entire document.

Our editors are trained to follow Scribbr’s academic style. However, your preferences might deviate from our conventions. The sample edit gives you the chance to provide feedback – you can let us know if you’re happy with the sample or if there’s something you would like the editor to do differently.

How does the sample edit work?

Once your editor has completed your sample edit, you will receive a notification via email. You have 24 hours to reply to this email and provide us with feedback. If we receive your feedback in time, your editor will go the extra mile and adjust the edit according to your input.

What sort of feedback can you give?

Give us feedback that will help your editor meet your requirements. For example:

• “I am completely happy. The editor can continue editing like this.”
• “I forgot to mention that my school has the following rules for gendered pronouns.”
• “The editor changed the spelling of a technical term, but my professor spells it differently. Please keep the original spelling of this term.”

The Structure and Clarity Check can only be purchased in conjunction with Proofreading & Editing. Providing feedback on structure and clarity requires extensive knowledge of the text, which the editor acquires while proofreading and editing your text.

However, our Paper Formatting Service, Citation Editing Service and Plagiarism Checker can be purchased separately.

Yes, Scribbr will proofread the summary in another language as well.

Who will proofread my summary?

If your document contains a summary in a different language, we will send this part to another editor who is a native speaker of that language. The editor will check your summary, applying our standard Proofreading & Editing service.

If you ordered any additional services, such as the Structure Check or Clarity Check, the editor will not apply them to your summary. This is because the summary is a translation of your abstract – you already receive Structure and Clarity feedback on the text in the original language. Therefore, when proofreading your summary, the editor will focus on making sure your language and style is correct.

How does it work?

We will create a new assignment within your order and send you a confirmation email. This also means that you will receive a separate email/SMS notification from us when the editor has finished proofreading your summary. Once your summary is proofread, you can download it via your Scribbr account and read the editor’s feedback.

Yes, we can provide a certificate of proofreading.

As soon as the editor delivers the edit, you can email us at info@scribbr.com to request a certificate.

Please indicate the following in your email:

• Your order number
• Your full name
• The title of your work

We will create a PDF certificate and email it to you as soon as possible.

Scribbr specializes in editing study-related documents. We proofread:

• Essays
• Papers
• Theses
• PhD dissertations
• Research proposals
• Personal statements
• Admission essays
• Motivation letters
• Reports
• Reflection papers
• Journal articles
• Capstone projects

Yes, when you accept all changes and delete all comments your document is ready to be handed in.

How to accept all changes:

• Word 2013
• Word 2010
• Word 2007
• Word 2003
• Word for Mac 2011

Accept changes (Word 2013)

Accept changes (Word 2010)

Accept changes (Word 2007)

Accept changes (Word 2003)

Accept changes (Word for Mac 2011)

How to remove all comments:

• Word 2013
• Word 2010
• Word 2007
• Word 2003
• Word for Mac 2011

Delete comment (Word 2013)

Delete comment (Word 2010)

Delete comment  (Word 2007)

Delete comment (Word 2003)

Delete comment (Word for Mac 2011)

When you’ve finished this, others will no longer be able to see the changes made by the editor.

Two tips

1. Read your last version one last time to make sure everything is the way you want it.
2. Save your document as a .pdf file to come across more professional and to ensure the format of your document doesn’t change.

Yes, in the order process you can indicate your preference for American, British, or Australian English.

If you don’t choose one, your editor will follow the style of English you currently use. If your editor has any questions about this, we will contact you.

Yes, you can upload your thesis in sections.

We try our best to ensure that the same editor checks all the different sections of your thesis. When you upload a new file, our system recognizes you as a returning customer, and we immediately contact the editor who helped you before.

However, we cannot guarantee that the same editor will be available. Your chances are higher if

1. You send us your text as soon as possible and
2. You can be flexible about the deadline.

Please note that the shorter your deadline is, the bigger the risk that your previous editor is not available.

If your previous editor isn’t available, then we will inform you immediately and look for another qualified editor. Fear not! Every Scribbr editor follows the Scribbr Improvement Model and will deliver high-quality work.

However, every editor has a slightly different editing style, so you may notice small inconsistencies in editing choices. As with every proofreading order, be sure to carefully review your editor’s changes and suggestions as you finalize your text to ensure that everything is as you want it.

The fastest turnaround time is 12 hours.

You can upload your document at any time and choose between four deadlines:

• Same day delivery
  • 3 hours
  • 6 hours
  • 12 hours
• 24 hours
• 3 days
• 7 days

At Scribbr, we promise to make every customer 100% happy with the service we offer. Our philosophy: Your complaint is always justified – no denial, no doubts.

Our customer support team is here to find the solution that helps you the most. Reach out easily through the chat widget below, or contact us by  email or phone.

Every Scribbr order comes with our award-winning Proofreading & Editing service, which combines two important stages of the revision process.

For a more comprehensive edit, you can add a Structure Check or Clarity Check to your order. With these building blocks, you can customize the kind of feedback you receive.

You might be familiar with a different set of editing terms. To help you understand what you can expect at Scribbr, we created this table:

View an example

Scribbr not only specializes in proofreading and editing texts in English, but also in several other languages. This way, we help out students from all over the world.

As a global academic writing proofreading service, we work with professional editors – all native speakers – who edit in the following languages:

• English
• German
• Dutch
• French
• Spanish
• Italian
• Danish
• Norwegian
• Swedish

This way, you can also have your academic writing proofread and edited in your second language!

Please note that we do not offer Finnish proofreading, but students can still upload English papers on scribbr.fi.

Yes, regardless of the deadline you choose, our editors can proofread your document during weekends and holidays.

Example: If you select the 12-hour service on Saturday, you will receive your edited document back within 12 hours on Sunday.

The footnotes are not automatically included in the word count.

If you want the language errors in your footnotes to be corrected by the editor, you can indicate this in step 3 of the upload process. The words in the footnotes are then automatically added to the total word count.

Need help with your references?

• If you use the APA reference style, you can use our free APA Citation Generator or the articles about APA in our Knowledge Base.
• If you’d like us to check your references for consistency, you can use our Citation Editing Service.

To keep our prices competitive, we do not offer a free trial edit. However, if your document is longer than 30,000 words, we are happy to provide you with a sample edit of 2,000 words to ensure you are satisfied with the editor’s editing style.

Rest assured, our customers are very satisfied with our proofreading services. We’re proud that they have rated us with an excellent 4.5 on Trustpilot. In the unlikely event that you have a less positive experience, we’ll solve that with our 100% happiness guarantee!

After your thesis has been edited, you will receive an email with a link to download the edited document.

The editor has made changes to your document using ‘Track Changes’ in Word.  This means that you only have to accept or ignore the changes that are made in the text one by one.

It is also possible to accept all changes at once. However, we strongly advise you not to do so for the following reasons:

• You can learn much by looking at what mistakes you have made.
• The editors do not only change the text, they also place comments when sentences or sometimes even entire paragraphs are unclear. We therefore advise you to read through these comments and take into account your editor’s tips and suggestions.
• Because of the many changes, sometimes there may be double spaces, double periods, or other minor mistakes in a sentence. Checking the changes one by one, you can easily detect these minor errors.

We have written a manual in which we explain step by step how ‘Track Changes’ works.

Check out an example

Our editors are very experienced and will do their utmost to correct all errors in your thesis.

However, with our current rates, an editor can only check your thesis once. This may cause an editor to overlook an error. We can therefore not guarantee that your thesis is 100% error free after you have had your thesis edited.

The editor uses ‘Track Changes’ in Word when editing your thesis.

Don’t know how this works? Then read the following guide in which we explain step by step how ‘Track Changes’ works.

No, we do not provide you with a clean copy. You will always receive a file edited with tracked changes.

We do this for two main reasons:

• In most papers, there are sentences that the editor cannot edit without additional information from the author. In these cases, your editor will provide guidance but leave you to implement the feedback. If we were to simply accept the changes for you, then these issues would be left unaddressed.
• We believe students should be accountable for their work. Our editors can correct language errors and coach you to be a better writer. However, the end product belongs to you and should reflect your ideas and decisions.

Check out an example

All Scribbr editors are language experts with interests in different subject areas.

You can indicate your field of study when you upload your document. We’ll make sure that the editor who proofreads your work is familiar with your discipline and its specialist vocabulary.

These are the fields of study you can choose from, and examples of the main subjects in each field:

• Business and Management: Business Administration, Hotel Management, Accountancy, Marketing
• Economics: Business Economics, Econometrics, Finance
• IT and Engineering: ICT, Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Applied Mathematics, Civil Engineering, Industrial Design, Electrical Engineering
• Natural and Life Sciences: Biomedical Sciences, Biology, Chemistry
• Geography, Agriculture and Environment: Ecology, Earth Sciences, Environmental Studies, Urban Planning
• Health and Medical Sciences: Medicine, Obstetrics, Pharmacy, Nutrition, Dentistry
• Arts and Humanities: Philosophy, History, Literature, Cultural Studies, Theology
• Law and Policy: Law, Political Science, Public Policy, Human Rights
• Social and Behavioral Sciences: Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, Communication Sciences
• Other

Editors don’t have to be experts in the content of your paper, but they do know how to present it in the best way possible! Our goal is to improve your writing and give you feedback on the readability, structure, logic, and clarity of your text. We know from experience that the most effective editors are specialists in language and academic writing.

We’ve carefully selected and trained all of our editors to proofread theses and other academic documents. Once they’re qualified, we continue to carefully monitor their work to make sure we always deliver the highest quality.

We know that waiting for feedback can be nerve-racking. If you select our faster deadline option, you’ll hear from your personal statement editor in 12 hours or less – including on weekends and holidays. 

We never engage in rewriting or adding text at Scribbr. Our personal statement editors will make grammatical corrections and leave suggestions using Word’s track changes and commenting feature. However, we always make sure that your perspective and voice remain front and center in your essay.

We know that waiting for feedback can be nerve-racking. If you select our faster deadline option, you’ll hear from your college essay coach in 12 hours or less – including on weekends and holidays.

Yes. All our college essay coaches are subject-matter experts and can help you make decisions regarding the content of your essay. Your coach will help you make a strong case for your admission.

Our essay coaches will provide feedback on…

• Whether your topic is appropriate and how to strengthen it
• Whether your essay demonstrates positive traits and authenticity
• Whether the narrative flows smoothly and grabs the reader’s attention
• How to dig deeper and show self-reflection and insight
• What content is missing and should be added
• What content is weak and should be removed
• How to shorten your essay to meet a word count limit

However, we will never…

• Write or rewrite content for you
• Research or fact-check your essay’s content

If you have any questions, feel free to email info@scribbr.com.

When you submit your essay to our College Essay Editing & Coaching service, you’ll be asked to indicate what type of content feedback you would like to receive. You can choose from three options:

• Dig deep and challenge me
• Give me the standard treatment
• Tread lightly

Whichever option you choose, you’ll receive in-depth content feedback from your essay coach. However, the type of feedback your essay coach provides may differ, and the option you should choose depends on what outcome you want from the review. You can always elaborate on what type of feedback you want in your note to your essay coach.

Learn more about the three options below.

Choose from three options

Dig deep and challenge me

If you choose this option, we’ll challenge you to write the best possible essay – no content suggestions are off-limits, including reorienting your topic or reframing your story. Students who choose this option aren’t afraid to go back to the drawing board if it’ll increase their chances of getting accepted. You may have to roll up your sleeves and do some more work on your essay, but your essay will be much stronger because of it.

Select this option if your priority is to have the best possible essay, even if it requires some extra work on your side.

Give me the standard treatment

We’ll strike a balance between “dig deep and challenge me” and “tread lightly.” We may suggest changes to your structure and narrative, including removing weak content, elaborating on certain sections, and adding content to strengthen your arguments. You may have to rework sentences and paragraphs, but we won’t suggest major content changes.

Tread lightly

With this option, we’ll focus on improving your essay in a way that requires little additional work from you. We’ll provide you with targeted suggestions for how to refine your essay’s structure and narrative, but we will work within your current structure and topic. While you may have to make a few tweaks here and there, we’ll aim to return you a polished draft that’s ready to be submitted to your chosen colleges.

Select this option if you are fairly satisfied with your essay and don’t want to make major changes or if you have limited time to revise.

Questions?

If you have any questions, feel free to email info@scribbr.com.

At Scribbr, we promise to make every customer 100% happy with the service we offer. Our philosophy: Your complaint is always justified – no denial, no doubts.

Our customer support team is here to find the solution that helps you the most. Reach out easily through the chat widget below, or contact us by  email or phone.

Unfortunately, the problem is tied to your internet provider if you live in the United States and use Comcast Cable Communications LLC / Xfinity. We are already in touch with Comcast trying to find a quick solution to the problem.

Here is what you can do in the meantime:

1. Please access your account using a different (non-Xfinity/Comcast) wifi network, if available, or mobile data.
2. Contact Comcast’s support staff directly to report this problem or report it directly via https://spa.xfinity.com/report

If you continue to experience login troubles or if you have different internet provider than Comcast please do not hesitate to contact our support team so that we can work together to find a solution.

We process your refund within 5 business days. Once the refund is processed, the refunded amount will be returned to your original payment method within a few days. Exactly how long this process takes depends on your payment method.

Credit card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Maestro and Diners Club)
Visa, Mastercard and Maestro take up to 2 working days.
American Express takes up to 3 working days.
Diners Club takes up to 5 working days.

PayPal
Takes up to 5 days.

Alipay
Takes up to 4 business days.

WeChat Pay
Takes up to 5 business days.

iDEAL
Instant.

When you upload your document and select a deadline, Scribbr will determine whether one editor can edit the whole document in the selected time period.

If that is not the case, we will ask you to extend the deadline. If that’s not possible for you, Scribbr has to split the document between multiple editors.

You will receive an email notification informing you of which editor will edit which part. The editors will be in contact with each other to ensure consistency.

This also means that you will receive an email and text message from us whenever one of the editors is finished proofreading. You can login to your account anytime to check the status of your orders.

Note: You will usually receive your edited documents in parts, which you can simply merge into one. Should you encounter any problems, you can always contact our support team. If your deadline allows it, Scribbr can also merge the different parts for you. Our support team will inform you accordingly when splitting the document.

Proofreading and editing service

The maximum file size for the proofreading and editing service is 40MB.

Unfortunately, the editor cannot check larger documents. This is because we can no longer safely send the document via our server to the editor. In addition, because of its size, the editor will have difficulty with opening and editing the document.

Plagiarism Check

We can accommodate up to 400 pages per upload. If your file is too large, then you can split your document and upload it in multiple parts. You will have to pay for each separate file you upload.

Making the document smaller for the proofreading service

If your document is larger than 40MB, this is probably due to large images in your document. There are several ways to make the file size smaller.

1) Compressing images

Word can compress your images without visible loss of quality. Please see the manual of Microsoft Office about how to compress your images.

In most cases, the document will be small enough.

2) Deleting images

When the images in your document are still too large after compressing them, it is best to delete the largest images until you are below the limit.

When you feel that this could impede the editor, you can upload a PDF version of your Word document in step 4 of the upload process. We will make sure that the PDF version is sent to the editor so that the editor can always access the PDF version when necessary.

No, it’s not possible to pay in instalments after the order is completed. Before an editor can start working on your thesis the order must be paid.

To make it as easy as possible to pay, we offer the following payment methods:

As soon as you complete your payment, we will receive a notification and send you a payment confirmation. The deadline starts as soon as we’ve received your payment.

Yes, you can send your supervisor’s feedback to us in an additional document while uploading your thesis or paper. We’ll make sure to pass this feedback on to the editor who will proofread your text.

Note: It is often more useful to summarize the feedback and ask direct questions to the editor instead of handing over lengthy documents with many requirements. The more information there is the less detailed the editor can answer the questions that are most relevant to you.

Your editor is already familiar with the requirements for academic writing. Too much information can make it unclear to the editor what to focus on specifically to help you in the best way possible.

Yes, you can download your invoice after you have paid for your order.

How?

1. Go to My Account, then navigate to the Invoices section.
2. Find the invoice for your order.
3. Click on the download icon ⬇️ to save it.

How do I make changes to the invoice?

If you want to make a change to the invoice (e.g., adding an address), then send an email to info@scribbr.com. In this email, clearly state what you would like to have changed. We will edit it within 3-5 business days.

Please note that it is not possible to add the VAT identification number.

Yes, we can proofread and edit your LaTeX document. However, because our editors work with the track changes functionality in Word, we will have to convert your LaTeX document to a .docx document (Microsoft Word).

Converting a LaTeX document into a .docx document is not difficult, but it may mix up the layout of your thesis partly. This means that you need to check the layout afterwards. Next to that, you have to implement all the changes made by the editor in your original LaTeX file.

Convert to Word

You can convert your LaTeX file to a .docx file in 3 steps.

1. Save the LaTeX file as a pdf file.
2. Open the pdf file with Microsoft Word. (Word automatically converts the pdf to a Word document.)
3. Save the Microsoft Word file.

Please contact us if you have any difficulties converting your file yourself. We can convert your document for you.

Upload pdf version as additional file

While uploading your document, you can also add your pdf file as an additional file. This may help your editor while editing, because it will show your editor the original formatting of your text.

If you would like to have your thesis edited by Scribbr, you can upload your thesis only in the following format:

• Microsoft Word format (.doc or .docx)

The editor will improve your thesis using ‘Track Changes’ in Microsoft Word.  We will always return to you a .docx file. In this Word file you can accept or ignore the changes the editor has made using the ‘Track Changes’ tool in Word. You can convert .odt files to .docx in OpenOffice or LibreOffice.

Would you like to have your document checked for plagiarism? Then upload your thesis in .doc, .docx or .pdf format. For more information go to Which file formats are supported by the Scribbr Plagiarism Check?

We explain how to upload your thesis, how to select the pages that need to be edited and how to pay on the following page: how does it work?

When editing your document our editors use ‘Track Changes’ in Word. This is an extremely useful tool with which you can easily see what the editor has done.

To use this tool, your document needs to be a .doc or .docx document. Sadly, the tool ‘Track Changes’ does not work well for .odt documents

You can, however, easily convert an .odt document to a .docx document. Below we explain how!

Step 1:

Open the .odt document with your word processor (for instance Open Office software like LibreOffice, or simply with Microsoft Word).

Step 2:

Save your document with the ‘Save As’ option and save the text as a .docx document. You can select this option  when you are indicating what type of text you are saving (below file name).

You can easily calculate the costs of editing your thesis using our price calculator.

The rate per word is as follows:

Next to the rate per word, there is a setup fee of $25.

Yes, you can upload your thesis in sections.

We try our best to ensure that the same editor checks all the different sections of your thesis. When you upload a new file, our system recognizes you as a returning customer, and we immediately contact the editor who helped you before.

However, we cannot guarantee that the same editor will be available. Your chances are higher if

1. You send us your text as soon as possible and
2. You can be flexible about the deadline.

Please note that the shorter your deadline is, the bigger the risk that your previous editor is not available.

If your previous editor isn’t available, then we will inform you immediately and look for another qualified editor. Fear not! Every Scribbr editor follows the Scribbr Improvement Model and will deliver high-quality work.

However, every editor has a slightly different editing style, so you may notice small inconsistencies in editing choices. As with every proofreading order, be sure to carefully review your editor’s changes and suggestions as you finalize your text to ensure that everything is as you want it.

The fastest turnaround time is 12 hours.

You can upload your document at any time and choose between four deadlines:

• Same day delivery
  • 3 hours
  • 6 hours
  • 12 hours
• 24 hours
• 3 days
• 7 days

At Scribbr, we promise to make every customer 100% happy with the service we offer. Our philosophy: Your complaint is always justified – no denial, no doubts.

Our customer support team is here to find the solution that helps you the most. Reach out easily through the chat widget below, or contact us by  email or phone.

Yes, regardless of the deadline you choose, our editors can proofread your document during weekends and holidays.

Example: If you select the 12-hour service on Saturday, you will receive your edited document back within 12 hours on Sunday.

Yes, you can select the pages of your thesis you want to have edited yourself. This way you can, for example, select only your introduction and your conclusion to be edited.

When you are uploading your thesis you can select which pages you want to have checked in Step 3.

Check out how you can upload your thesis.

We accept the following payment methods:

Credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Maestro Diners Club, Discover and JCB)
Transaction fee of 2% – 4%.

PayPal
Transaction fee of 3,5%.

AliPay
Transaction fee of 3,2%.

WeChat Pay
Transaction fee of 2%.

Apple Pay
Transaction fee of 2%.

Google Pay
Transaction fee of 2%.

Scribbr offers a 24-hour, 3-day, and 7-day service. It is not possible to shorten a deadline with a 24-hour order.

If you contact us early enough, it is possible to shorten the deadline of a 3-day or 7-day order. Please contact us directly to ask if it’s still possible to shorten the deadline. We will assess this depending on the number of words in your paper and our editor availability.

If the deadline can be shortened, you will need to pay the respective price difference as soon as possible. Support will inform you about the new deadline and send you a payment link to pay for the remaining balance.

After you place your order, it is not possible to replace the document. If you want to submit a different version of your document, please contact the support team right away.

Note: If the editor already started working on your document, you will be required to pay for the extra words that need to be edited.

Do you want to add an additional service after you have placed your order? Simply contact our support team to assess whether this is still possible. As long as your editor hasn’t finished editing your document, it’s usually no problem to add an additional check.

Scribbr will ask you to pay for the additional service right away before we add it to your order. We might also ask you to extend the deadline by a few hours depending on the word count of your paper and the editing time that is left.

We also encourage our editors to notify us when they think that it would be beneficial for you to order another service on top of proofreading (e.g., a Structure Check or Clarity Check). If this is the case, we make sure to contact you to discuss this first.

Do you want to cancel your proofreading order before you receive the edited text? Please contact us directly as soon as possible.

If the editor did not start yet, it is possible to cancel the order. We will then refund you the whole amount excluding transaction costs.

If your order has already been assigned to an editor for proofreading, it’s not possible to cancel the order.

In this case, support can ask the editor to stop editing. You will have to pay for the pages the editor has edited so far. The editor will not write a feedback letter.

Note: It is not possible to cancel a plagiarism check because the check is started automatically right after ordering the check.

After you’ve placed your order, it’s not possible for you to modify your order details.

If you want to add or update important information for your editor, please contact us directly. Our support team will make sure to forward the information to your editor.

When placing your order, you can upload additional documents (e.g. guidelines, feedback from your supervisor, or a PDF version of your converted LaTeX file). Your editor will be able to view these documents.

If you have received language-related criteria, then the editor can make sure your paper meets these requirements. If your supervisor has provided other criteria, then your editor can take these into account and make sure you won’t receive advice that contradicts these requirements.

Note: It is often more useful to summarize your feedback or criteria than to upload lengthy documents. The more information you provide, the less detailed feedback your editor can provide to the questions that are most relevant to you.

After you’ve placed your order, it’s not possible to change your text or the additional documents through your user profile.

But, you can just email info@scribbr.com, attaching the additional document. Our support team will then forward the document to the editor.

If the editor is already almost finished or the deadline is near, the editor will not be able to consider the additional file.

Yes, your editor will meet the deadline. You can double check the deadline and the status of your order in your user profile. You will receive a notification via text message and email as soon as your thesis is ready.

In the rare event that there is a delay with your order (e.g. due to technical problems), we will contact both you and the editor right away to find the best possible solution.

No, you cannot receive part of the edited file if the editor has not yet finished proofreading.

Our editors review your document in multiple passes, including a final check at the end. If we deliver part of the edit upfront, then the editor cannot do this final check for errors and consistency, which means that the quality of the edit will be lower. Therefore, it is not possible for us to deliver your edit in multiple parts.

Once the editor finishes editing your document, we will immediately send it your way so you can implement your editor’s changes and feedback.

If you are not satisfied with the work of your editor, please contact us right away by filling in the complaint form. We will contact you within one working day, and together we will find a suitable solution.

It is not possible to contact your editor directly. Contact with your editor will always be via the Scribbr support team.

Questions about our services

If you have questions about our services, please contact our support team through the chat, phone or email (info@scribbr.com).

Question about changes or comments from your editor

If you have any questions about your editor’s work, you can email them to info@scribbr.com. Our support team will then make sure that our quality management team or your editor follows up with you as soon as possible.

Tip: Add your questions as comments in the Word document. That way, your questions can be answered directly in your document.  

Service scope

We’re always happy to provide more clarification about particular edits and suggestions, and we can also answer more general questions about your edit. 

However, if you are looking for a fuller review of your edited text after you’ve incorporated the edits, we may ask you to upload a new order.

Have you received your Word document but are having problems opening the file? If you have problems with accepting the changes, please read our manual. For any other problems, please contact us directly.

Your editor may be located in a different time zone than you. The time stamps in your edited document do not show this. This is why it might seem like the editor only worked on your order during the night, while it was actually daytime in the editor’s location.

Furthermore, some of our editors simply prefer to work in the evening or at night because they are more productive then or because they are working on other projects during the day.

In general, the time stamps in the document are not an indicator of editing quality.

When Word crashes or runs very slowly, this could be caused by the Reviewing Pane. Due to the number of changes and comments, there is a lot of content in the Revision Pane, which causes Word to run slowly and possibly crash.

The Reviewing Pane is the Pane on the left side of your screen that you can extend when you go to the Review tab.

Close this Reviewing Pane while you keep on working on your document.

If this does not solve your problem, please contact Scribbr via the chat or send an e-mail to info@scribbr.com.

Don’t panic! Sometimes you cannot see the changes straight away when you open the Word document, even though the changes of the editor are in there.

Step 1: Go to the ‘Review’ tab and select ‘All Markup’ in the drop down menu (Word 2019).

Step 2: Click on ‘Show Markup’ below ‘All Markup’ (Word 2019) and make sure all options are ticked.

• Word 2019
• Word 2013
• Word 2010
• Word 2007
• Word 2003
• Word for Mac 2011

Show Track Changes (Word 2019)

Show Track Changes (Word 2013)

Show Track Changes (Word 2010)

Show Track Changes (Word 2007)

Show Track Changes (Word 2003)

Show Track Changes (Word for Mac 2011)

Step 1: Go to the Review tab and select ‘All Markup’ in the drop down menu (Word 2019).

Step 2: Click on ‘Show markup’ below ‘All Markup’ and tick ‘Comments’ (Word 2019).

• Word 2019
• Word 2013
• Word 2010
• Word 2007
• Word 2003

Show comments (Word 2019)

Show comments (Word 2013)

Show comments (Word 2010)

Show comments (Word 2007)

Show comments (Word 2003)

This red line is there because there are still changes in the document that need to be accepted (which can be minor changes like double spaces or a wrongly placed comma).

Step 1: Go to the Review tab and click on ‘Accept’ (Word 2019).

Step 2: Click on ‘Accept All Changes and Stop Tracking’.

• Word 2019
• Word 2013
• Word 2010
• Word 2007
• Word 2003

Accept All Changes (Word 2019)

Accept All Changes (Word 2013)

Accept all changes (Word 2010)

Accept All Changes (Word 2007)

Accept All Changes (Word 2003)

You might come across redundant changes, where a word or punctuation mark is replaced by the same word or punctuation mark.

Changes like these occur during the routine editing process, so there’s no cause for concern. There are two common reasons you might see such changes:

• Our editors work in the “simple markup” view, so they can ensure they don’t introduce errors during the editing process. However, this means that editors sometimes delete a word and then retype it, and Word’s track changes will count this as an edit.
• This can also happen when editors use spell check or other advanced editing tools, which allow the editor to review multiple instances of a word at once. Tools like this enable us to deliver a consistent edit, but they sometimes result in “unnecessary” changes.

If you see redundant changes in your text, you can simply accept or reject them.

Yes, you can delete your order from your Scribbr account. The document you’ve uploaded will automatically be deleted from our server.

Please note that deleting your order is an irrevocable process. The Scribbr team will no longer have access to your document and will not be able to deal with complaints concerning your order if you delete it. Only delete your order when you are 100% satisfied with our services.

How to delete an order:

1. Log on to the Scribbr website.
2. From your dashboard, open the order you want to delete.
3. Select the “Details” tab.
4. Click “Delete order.”
5. A form will appear on the page. Read the information carefully and enter the order number.
6. Press “Delete” to delete your order.

Log on to our website and go to ‘Manage Account’ and click on ‘Delete account’.

At Scribbr, we are committed to protecting your personal information. That’s why our employees and editors follow specific guidelines to ensure the confidentiality of your work:

• Pledge of secrecy
• Signed statement prohibiting publication or third-party sharing
• Obligation to delete files
• Secure connection (SSL)

Both the original and edited versions of your document are saved on our secure server for 12 months. After this period, the files are automatically deleted. However, you can manually delete your files at any time via your user profile.

Tip: If you still have concerns about confidential information in your document, you can take additional measures to anonymize this data. We advise you to do the following:

• Change company names and other identifying details
• Delete data and analyses that do not need proofreading

Can I ask Scribbr to sign an NDA?

As a policy, we do not sign NDAs. Every NDA is complex and unique, and our legal team does not have the capacity to review each individual contract we receive.

However, we take extensive measures to protect the confidentiality of your documents. You can learn more about how we handle confidential information on our privacy policy page.

All Scribbr editors are native speakers, which means that they have spoken English since early childhood. We only work with native speakers because these editors understand the cadence of the language and have mastered its idiomatic forms.

It is difficult for non-native speakers to acquire these traits, even if they are fluent and have spoken the language throughout their adult lives. Since our customers wish to work only with native speakers, we have no flexibility in this requirement.

We don’t rely solely on nativeness. Our editors are vetted through a rigorous application process, through which they are asked to demonstrate technical grammar knowledge, familiarity with academic writing, and an understanding of editing principles. All successful applicants also complete our Scribbr Academy training program, where they learn how to edit for students.

Editor application process

Editing for students is different from other kinds of editing. The Scribbr Academy is the last step of your application process, but it comes with some benefits. During your time in the Academy, we will train you on how to perform Scribbr’s services and edit in the Scribbr style. The training also features practical elements, such as one-on-one coaching, that are beneficial to you. In this way, we will prepare you to face real-life student orders and jump start your editing career at Scribbr.

In order to become a qualified editor at Scribbr, you will need to apply the learnings from the Academy and pass 2 – 5 simulation orders (the exact number depends on performance).

You must apply through our website and complete all the steps in the Scribbr editor application process.

It is not possible to see the answers to our quiz. If you’re looking for more insights on related issues, check out Scribbr’s language articles and websites that address grammar and writing issues.

If you’re accepted as an editor in the Scribbr Academy, the information package you gain access to includes an article with the correct answers to a previous version of our language quiz.

On average, you can expect to earn approximately €20 to €30 per hour as a Scribbr editor.

The earnings are calculated based on fixed per-word rates that we have set for different kinds of assignments. We will communicate these rates to you as soon as you are in your Scribbr Academy.

The per-word rate for each order is determined by:

• The editing deadline (the shorter the deadline, the higher the rate); and
• The services purchased (whether a Structure or Clarity Check is booked on top of standard proofreading and editing).

In our Scribbr Academy, we train you to edit as efficiently as possible—which will help you to increase the speed at which you work. For example, we include a Scribbr Word macro that you can use to easily utilize standardized in-text comments.

Incoming editors should be highly knowledgeable regarding grammar, academic style, and the conventions of both US English and UK English.

You’ll need this knowledge to not only edit student papers but also provide individualized feedback for students.

We also expect new editors to have read widely in a variety of fields and to feel comfortable editing academic texts in a range of subjects, including the hard sciences and the social sciences. New editors likewise need to be familiar with the structure of different types of academic texts, including dissertations, theses, reports, and essays.

Finally, you’ll need to be comfortable working with Microsoft Word, including its Track Changes feature.

Since Scribbr specializes in academic editing for students, we require our editors to be thesis and academic writing experts. Every Scribbr editor has a thorough understanding of academic writing conventions and research concepts used in higher education.

Most of the papers we receive are theses and dissertations. We prefer to work with editors who know first-hand how difficult it is to write a thesis, as they can offer constructive and relevant advice to our students.

Therefore, we only accept applications from editors with a university degree.

However, a university degree alone is not enough. All applicants must also demonstrate technical grammar knowledge and fundamental editing skills during the application process.  Applicants must also complete our rigorous Scribbr Academy training program before they can join the editor team.

Incoming editors must be familiar with the conventions of both US English and UK English and able to consistently follow the related rules. However, if you’re only familiar with one of these dialects, don’t despair! Getting up to speed on the major differences between the two systems is definitely doable. Our Knowledge Base is a good place to start.

If you are familiar with the conventions of US and UK English and can edit according to them, you are more than welcome to apply. At this time, however, we cannot accept applicants who are only familiar with other English dialects. The reason is that the vast majority of our clients require their papers to be written in US or UK English.

The application process consists of three steps that you must successfully complete to become an active editor within our system:

1. Scribbr language quiz: 30 minutes
2. Scribbr application assignment: 2.5 hours
3. Scribbr Academy: 2 – 3 weeks (the Academy has to be completed within 4 weeks to be able to pass)

The speed at which you are able to complete the application process depends on your availability and the level of your work you submit. For us, it is important not only that you edit according to our guidelines, but also that you feel you have enough experience with us to make the leap to being an active Scribbr editor.

Throughout the process, you will receive feedback from experienced editors – so no matter what happens, you won’t be wasting your time!

When we receive a new order, we choose the most suitable Scribbr editor based on the following factors:

• Availability. If you would like to receive a lot of orders, you can indicate that you are available immediately. We will then try to send more assignments your way.
• Interest in the subject. We will not be as fast to send you orders that are from fields you have not marked as preferred.
• Returning client. We will automatically send you orders from a returning student whose work you have already edited, unless he or she specifically requests otherwise.

The moment we have a new order for you, we will send you an email, an SMS and a notification via your Scribbr account on our website. You may then choose to accept or decline that assignment. You make this decision for every order we send you.

All orders are classified into 1 of 9 categories:

• Business and Management:
  Business Administration, Hotel Management, Accounting, Marketing
• Economics:
  Commercial Economics, Econometrics, Finance
• IT and Engineering:
  ICT, Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Applied Mathematics, Civil Engineering, Industrial Design, Electrical Engineering
• Natural and Life Sciences:
  Biomedical Sciences, Biology, Chemistry
• Geography, Agriculture and Environment:
  Ecology, Earth Sciences, Environmental Studies, Urban Planning
• Health and Medical Sciences:
  Medicine, Obstetrics, Pharmacy, Nutrition, Dentistry
• Arts and Humanities:
  Philosophy, History, Literature, Cultural Studies, Theology
• Law and Policy:
  Law, Political Science, Public Policy, Human Rights
• Social and Behavioral Sciences:
  Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, Communication Science, Education
• Other

You can specify the fields that you are interested in. When we send you an order, we always take your preferences into account.

More information about the categories

No, you don’t.

As an editor, you are affiliated with us on a freelance basis. You can work for us from anywhere in the world and from any time zone.

It is important that you are frequently online and have a phone with Internet access, as we will send you both an e-mail and an SMS as soon as we have a new assignment for you.

When performing the Citation Editing service, your Scribbr expert will:

• Ensure that your chosen citation style is applied consistently
• Ensure that punctuation and capitalization, as well as the use of “et al.,” are correct
• Check for any inconsistencies between your in-text citations and your list of references
• Find missing information in certain cases (e.g., when the publisher of a book is missing from a reference list entry)
• Add missing authors should “et al.” be used incorrectly (if your document provides enough information about a given source to allow your expert to research it)
• Check the layout and consistency of your reference list
• Flag reference list entries that seem incomplete (in the event that there is not enough information to research the sources in question)

The Citation Editing service does not include the following:

• Creating a reference list from scratch
• Creating references for website URLs
• Conducting research to find missing information when all or most of the sources in a text are incomplete
• Checking whether the information that is already included in a text is correct (e.g., the spellings of authors’ names, dates of publication, titles, etc.)
• Providing feedback on the quality and/or relevance of sources
• Providing feedback on the number of citations provided
• Editing or formatting quotations
• Adjusting the formatting of in-text citations (e.g., converting in-text references to footnotes)
• Converting existing references into a different citation style
• Adding missing sources to the reference list

When booking the Citation Editing service, you’ll be asked to indicate how many sources you have in your reference list. You’ll also need to indicate which reference style you’re using. We provide the service for the styles APA (6th and 7th editions), MLA, Chicago, Vancouver, Harvard, Deutsche Zitierweise, and university-specific guidelines.

Please note that we do not create entire references or apply style guidelines from scratch. Please also make sure that the information you added for your reference is correct. We cannot research each reference list and validate its content; we focus on formatting your reference list and in-text citations according to your selected citation style.

If you only add URLs, for example, we cannot edit it or create a reference entry for you. Rather, please ensure that you have already added the entries so that our experts can make sure it’s consistent and flawless in style.

If your citations are already good to go, and you just want to do a last check, you can also use our AI-powered APA Citation Checker. This tool flags minor mistakes that you can then fix yourself.

We offer the human Citation Editing service for:

• English
• German
• Dutch
• French

The APA Citation Checker tool can check documents in the following languages:

• English
• German
• Dutch
• French
• Spanish

The APA Citation Checker is an AI-based tool that currently supports APA Style 6th edition (2009) and 7th edition (2020). We are working hard to support more citation styles in the future.

Scribbr’s Citation Editing Service is performed by a human citation expert and supports APA 6, APA 7, MLA, Chicago, Vancouver, Harvard, Deutsche Zitierweise, and university-specific guidelines. Unfortunately, due to their complexity, we cannot check law-based reference styles.

If you have your own version of any of the above styles (for example, a specific Harvard guideline), please select “own guidelines” and upload your manual during the upload process.

The Structure and Clarity Check can only be purchased in conjunction with Proofreading & Editing. Providing feedback on structure and clarity requires extensive knowledge of the text, which the editor acquires while proofreading and editing your text.

However, our Paper Formatting Service, Citation Editing Service and Plagiarism Checker can be purchased separately.

Yes, you are able to indicate which sources in your reference list you would like us to check.

Please highlight the sources that you would like to have checked in yellow in the reference list in your Word document. This way, we know which sources to check.

Do keep in mind that:

• We’ll only correct the sources that you ask us to check.
• We’ll improve the format of your reference list. We’ll modify the font type, font size, indentation and line spacing of the complete list. Additional formatting that depends on the type of source (e.g. italicizing titles) will only be improved for the selected sources.
• We will not check and correct the in-text citations. For us to properly correct the in-text citations, we need to crosscheck all sources in the reference list. Since we are not able to check all your sources, this is not possible.

Therefore, we recommend having your entire reference list checked.

We can only check an automatic reference list when it is created using Word’s references tool.

In case you have an automatic list created by a third-party software (such as Mendeley, Refworks, Zotero, and Endnote), we can only help you if we change your reference list to a non-automatic format. In this case, you will not be able to make further automatic corrections to your reference list or add in-text citations. However, we can provide you with more detailed feedback and make sure that your citations follow the rules of your reference style exactly as they should.

Note that in general we can better help you when we can convert your list to a non-automatic format.

We can check most reference styles, including university-specific style guides. For us to do this, you would need to upload the manual during the uploading process.

Unfortunately, due to their complexity, we cannot check law-based reference styles.

This will depend on the type of missing information. For example, a book reference always contains the author’s name, the title, the year of publication, and the publisher. If one of these crucial details is missing, your citation expert will research the information and add it wherever possible.

Your citation expert cannot, however, complete your reference list for you. Depending on the missing information, they may ask you to add it yourself. Your expert also cannot verify if the information you provided is correct, as they focus on applying the selected guidelines correctly and consistently.

No, unfortunately that’s not possible. Our citation experts will improve your current reference list and in-text citations, but they cannot create the citations for you.

We’ll ensure that your references meet your style guide requirements, improve the overall format, provide feedback on incomplete reference list entries, add missing details to in-text citations (based on the reference list) and crosscheck your in-text citations against your reference list to highlight any missing sources.

Unfortunately, we cannot create a complete reference list for you. Our Citation Editing Service focuses on perfecting existing sources, not creating a list from scratch.

If you are having trouble creating a list, we recommend using our APA Generator and checking out our articles on referencing.