Note to Freelancers
When we first started assigning projects and tasks to freelancers, we did not have any guidelines.
We found that there were certain situations that continued to arise as a result of subtle misunderstandings or miscommunication.
While we apologize in advance for the formal tone of our guidelines, we have put these together in an effort to help save our freelancers’ time and to make our working relationship go as smoothly as possible by trying to set clear expectations.
Below are the IAPWE’s content submission guidelines:
1. Under no circumstances is the IAPWE under any obligation to accept or approve any content submitted for consideration by freelancers.
This is our first point, due to the fact that we occasionally will receive submissions from freelancers that contain typos, grammatical errors, fail to follow all guidelines and examples, or that are of an overall low quality level.
Our senior editors have a limited amount of available time and resources, and due to this they are unable to provide feedback for all content that is submitted, especially if the content is of an overall low quality level or contains any of the issues mentioned above. Due to this, you may not receive any confirmation or feedback if you submit content that does not meet certain guidelines or quality standards. Our senior editors do not have enough available time to provide feedback for pieces that require grammatical correction, reminders of guidelines that were not followed or editing to increase the overall quality of the content. It is not manageable for our senior editors to provide point-by-point feedback and revision requests, asking for submitted content to follow specific guidelines that were already posted, or to make other suggestions that would help improve overall content quality, etc. Our senior editors have a standard for a high level of overall quality in all content submitted for consideration. We recognize that this can be subjective, which is why we go out of our way to provide content guidelines for each task that are as specific as possible.
If, for any reason, you do not feel you will be able to meet the requirements listed in the guidelines for a specific task and/or create content at a quality level and tone similar to that of any examples (if provided), we recommend waiting for other new tasks that might be more suitable for you to become available in the future.
The last thing we want is to waste your time or ours, so please consider the guidelines for any task before beginning work.
2. The IAPWE will not, under any circumstances, use or publish any content submitted by freelancers for consideration, until that work has been approved and paid for in full by the IAPWE.
Once the content has been paid for, the freelancer will surrender all rights to the content. Depending upon the type of content, the freelancer may or may not receive a byline or credit, however we will try to give credit whenever possible.
3. After submitting your content, you will find out if it has been approved within approximately 10 business days.
As mentioned in point 1, if your content does not meet certain guidelines or if the content is not of an acceptable overall quality level, you may not receive any confirmation of receipt or any feedback on the content.
As mentioned in point 2, under no circumstances will any content submitted by a freelancer be used or published until after that content has already been approved and paid for in full.
We are no longer offering a “claim” function on our tasks due to too many instances of freelancers claiming tasks and not submitting the content for them. In the rare event that we receive the same exact piece of content at the same exact time from two different freelancers, and both pieces are approved, both freelancers will be paid (this a fairly uncommon occurrence since we are quick to remove a task from the dashboard once the corresponding content has been approved).
4. The payment rate for all written content is $20 per 100 words and $6 per 100 words for all edited content unless otherwise stated in the guidelines for a specific task.
We round up to the nearest dollar when calculating payment for submitted content, however we will not pay beyond the stated maximum length for the content. For example, if the stated maximum length for the content is 350 words, we will not pay for more than 350 words.
5. All content must pass one of the major plagiarism-screening services; Copyscape or Turnitin.
Due to past situations in which we have received plagiarized content from freelancers, we now require all freelancers to include a copy of a report from either Copyscape or Turnitin, showing that the content has passed successfully and does not contain any plagiarized content. Copyscape and Turnitin are industry standards when it comes to plagiarism detection. A screenshot of the results will suffice for each piece of content submitted. We used to check all content ourselves, however this became unmanageable since we would have to send the content back to the freelancer any time that we found a match, sometimes having to send the content back multiple times for multiple revisions.
Please note that content which has been essentially copied from another source, having only been reworded and reorganized so as to pass one of these screening services, will not be accepted. We have had situations in the past in which freelancers have tried to “game” the system by changing the order of words or sentences from another article, while making only minor changes in wording so as to get the content to pass the screening service without creating any original content.
Please note that we do NOT require anyone to use our in-house plagiarism checker which is only available for paying members. You can use Copyscape instead, which charges a nominal fee at just a few cents per content search.
6. All payments will now be made through Freelancer.com, which is an online platform for both clients and freelancers that is free to join. Any additional fees or percentages charged by Freelancer for processing payments will be absorbed and paid for by the IAPWE.
Please check that you have a Freelancer.com account that is in good standing so that you are able to receive payment for your work once it has been approved. Your Freelancer account name must match your name used with us. If you do not have a Freelancer account, you can create one here.
If for any reason your Freelancer account name does not match you name used with us, this is not a problem. All you need to do is make sure to include both names in the body of your email when submitting your content.
7. Freelancers are under no obligation to work with or complete tasks for the IAPWE, nor is the IAPWE under any obligation to continue working with any freelancer. Either party may terminate the working relationship at any point at their sole or joint discretion.
While we hope to continue working with all of our freelancers in a lasting and productive capacity, we do not make any guarantees that we will be able to continue working with all freelancers, depending upon a number of factors including the quality of the work submitted, reliability and other additional factors. Likewise, freelancers can terminate their working relationship with the IAPWE at any point in time.
Additionally, if a freelancer submits content that is plagiarized or otherwise attempts to deliberately deceive the IAPWE in any way regarding their content and/or identity, the freelancer may be permanently banned from the Freelancer Portal.
8. What counts as a task?
Each writing prompt with an accompanying letter counts as a separate task. For example, 459-A and 459-B are each considered separate tasks. They are not considered sub-tasks of the same task. When we ask you to submit one task at a time, this means you would only submit content for 459-A OR 459-B, but never both.
9. Multiple submissions for same task.
In the event that two freelancers submit content for the same task at the same time, as long as both pieces meet our requirements and are approved, we would pay for both of them.
10. Do I need to wait to be assigned a task? How do I claim a task?
You do not need to wait to be assigned a task. As long as a specific task is still available in your portal, you can simply begin working on it and submit it through our content submission process.
11. Task limits and earnings potential
If, after submitting multiple pieces of content that are all approved, we may remove the “one at a time” task limit that is in place for all new freelancers.
12. Tasks in multiple languages
At times we may have tasks in multiple languages available, however, whatever you see in your portal is what is currently available.
13. Why am I only seeing writing or editing tasks and not both?
If you are only seeing writing tasks, this is because you were hired as a writer. We cannot manually move you over to an editor position. You would need to apply separately and be accepted as an editor. You will know which position you were accepted for based on the types of tasks available in your portal.
14. How often are tasks updated?
We regularly update the types of tasks available, which can change monthly, weekly, or even daily depending upon the activity level of our freelancers as well as our content needs. Please keep in mind that not all freelancers have the same tasks in their respective portals.
15. Do you provide examples of complete tasks?
We do not provide examples of completed tasks.
The shorter version:
Please check that you are confident you can create high quality, original, well-researched content that follows all guidelines before beginning work on any task. We do our best to work with our freelancers in a productive capacity, however we may not always be able to accept submitted content or provide feedback depending upon the quality of the content submitted and whether or not the content follows all guidelines. If your content is not approved, it will not be published or used for any purpose.