Professional word-processing of A level project?

PinkPanther - that's not true in my area of experience. I agree that everyone should be able to knock out a decent word document, but there's a difference between that and a final document that might go out to clients or be published. I've found quite the opposite in fact - that those people who are best at the 'finishing' job tend to stay at that admin level, whereas the others move onto higher level jobs. It makes no sense to have someone who can be billed out to clients at £100-£200 an hour spending time doing the job that someone paid a tenth of that can do better!

Anyway it's obviously a grey area if different universities are advising different things. In my opinion the key issue is whether a service is substantially changing anything or just improving the visual layout and appearance of a body of text which has been provided.
If proofreading is wrong, then surely that would mean that students shouldn't be allowed to use computer spelling and grammar check software for assessed work?
They aren't allowed to in exams when laptops are used, but that's because marks are awarded for spelling and grammar.

I think you'll find that most academic institutions actively encourage peer review and proof-reading. If they (Manchester University in this case) believed it was unacceptable, they would be saying so, NOT advising their students how to go about it!

Check out the comments here: academia.stackexchange.com/questions/24346/is-it-considered-cheating-to-ask-a-friend-or-tutor-to-proofread-your-thesis-befo

We're not talking about essay writing/new content here, just tidying up!

Anyway, this has moved away from A levels now, into higher education. CraftyGin - thanks for your suggestion, yes, I might just check her perspective on it.

By the way, on the subject of Chelsea, you DO realise that the garden designers don't do their own digging and planting don't you? They do the thinking, research, design and then let someone else do the execution.
So it's exactly the same!

There's a MASSIVE difference between essay writing/plagiarism and proof-reading and formatting!!

I'm sorry titchy but this is bollocks:
" you're supposed to proofread your own stuff at uni, getting someone else to do it for you is cheating"

Universities offer guidance on how to go about getting your work proofread! (e.g. see documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=29482)

I agree nobody is likely to handwrite a thesis, but mostly people type up something in a basic Word document and list their references etc at the end, but then a proofreader/ formatting person will correctly lay it out, according to the various academic conventions.
You get your degree for the quality of your research and thinking - not your typing skills, but as I said before, a well presented document makes a better impression.

OK, so as I've already said down thread I've established that he couldn't do this unless he declared it, so it's not going to happen.

However, I'm surprised by how many people are saying 'ridiculous' and 'he needs to learn to do it for uni' etc.
People pay 'experts' to do tasks for them all the time - it's normally a much more efficient way of getting things done. I can decorate, do gardening, do my tax return, alter clothing, clean my house etc perfectly adequately if I have to, but in all cases I usually get someone else (who does these tasks all the time for a living) to do these things for me, and that then frees up time for me to do what I choose to do for my work. It just makes sense.

As a pp said, students have been getting their dissertations professionally typed up for years and there's a HUGE market these days for services such as this one: proofreadmyessay.co.uk/services/formatting

Unless you go on to be an academic, you might only write one, or two, huge dissertations at uni and £30 sounds like a bargain, especially if you are short on time.

OK, so I've looked at JCQ guidelines for assessed work and found this line:

• candidates must not submit work that has been word processed by a third party without acknowledgement;

So it looks as if it's a no no. Perhaps his teacher didn't understand what he meant.

While I agree it's a useful skill to have, I do think some people are just naturally better at layout/ design etc and can do it much quicker. And people do subconsciously react to the professionalism of a piece of work I.e. The same words in a poorly presented document are less likely to be accepted than in a polished, professional one.

Spam - I'm also a professional and can produce my own reports, however the view taken by my company is that given my hourly rate it's more efficient/ profitable for me to spend my time on the actual content, rather than fiddling around with fonts and spacing and general 'tarting up' as it gets called. The team who do that are way better than me at it anyway, so it seems a fair division of labour!

Thanks for the links to exam board regulations - I'll take a look.
It's an internally assessed project, with I think, a selection of the projects then being externally moderated.
He asked his teacher if he could ask someone else to help with formatting and his teacher said it didn't matter if he did as it's only the content that is marked. However he believes that a well presented document creates a better overall impression, and he has nothing to lose by doing it ( so long as it is not against the rules, clearly).