Research ethics
The standards we hold — including the ones that cost us work.
This page is not decoration. It describes decisions built into our software, our contracts, and how we say no.
Authorship
You are the author of your own work. Your mentor contributes guidance, questions, review and teaching. They do not author your manuscript, and they do not appear on it — because they didn't write it.
Authorship in academic publishing carries a specific meaning: substantial intellectual contribution, and accountability for the work. A researcher who did not do the intellectual work cannot honestly claim either.
This is why our model is mentoring, not writing. It's also why we built an approval gate into our software: no manuscript can be recorded as submitted in your name until you have personally confirmed that the work is yours and that you approve it. We can't skip that step even if we wanted to.
What we will not do
Stated plainly, so nobody wastes anybody's time.
Write your paper for you
We do not produce manuscripts for clients to submit under their own name. That is ghost authorship. It is misconduct at most institutions and grounds for retraction.
Sell or arrange authorship
We do not sell author positions, arrange authorship on someone else's paper, or participate in authorship-for-sale of any kind.
Fabricate or falsify
We will not invent data, manipulate results, or manufacture citations — no matter the deadline or the fee.
Plagiarise
We will not reproduce others' work without attribution, and we check for it before anything reaches submission.
Guarantee publication
No honest agency can promise acceptance in a genuine peer-reviewed journal. Anyone who does is either lying or arranging something that will damage you.
Complete assessed coursework
We do not write theses, dissertations or assignments that are submitted for academic credit as evidence of your own unaided work.
Originality
All work must be original. We check similarity before submission and will tell you if there's a problem — including when it's inconvenient.
Where AI tools are used at any stage, we expect that to be disclosed in line with your journal's and institution's policy. Undisclosed AI generation of substantive content is a growing cause of retraction, and we won't put your name near it.
Data integrity
Your data must be real, lawfully obtained, and ethically collected. Where your research involves human participants, we expect appropriate ethics approval to be in place.
We will help you analyse and interpret your data honestly — including when it doesn't support your hypothesis. A null result reported truthfully is worth more than a positive one manufactured.
Why we're this strict
Because the alternative destroys the person we're supposed to be helping.
Retraction is permanent
A retracted paper follows a researcher for their whole career. The short-term convenience of a ghostwritten manuscript is never worth that risk.
You have to defend it
You will be asked about your methods — in a viva, an interview, a seminar. A researcher who was coached can answer. One who was handed a paper cannot.
It's the only thing that lasts
A paper someone else wrote gets you one line on a CV. A skill you actually learned gets you the next paper, and the one after.
If these standards suit you, we'd like to work with you
And if they don't, we've saved us both some time.