RightMyWork is an AI editor for academic, fiction and nonfiction manuscripts. You upload a Word document, the editor reads it from the title page to the appendices, and you receive a tracked-changes version back, with editor comments on the key edits. Every suggestion lands as a tracked change you can accept or reject inside Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or any tool that understands the DOCX format.
This walkthrough explains what to prepare, which options actually matter, and how to read the result so your first edit goes smoothly.
What copyediting means here
Copyediting is the layer of editorial work that sits between proofreading and developmental editing. A proofreader catches typos. A developmental editor rethinks structure and argument. A copyeditor cleans up grammar, punctuation, style, clarity at the sentence level, and the small consistency rules that turn a draft into a publishable manuscript.
RightMyWork works in that copyediting layer. It is not designed to invent new arguments or paraphrase your sentences into something more generic. It corrects what is in front of it, on the terms of the style guide you choose, and aims to preserve your meaning. Like any AI, it can make mistakes, which is why every change is a tracked suggestion for you to accept or reject.
Preparing your document
File format
RightMyWork accepts Microsoft Word documents with the .docx extension. That is the modern Office Open XML format, which preserves your headings, citations, footnotes, headers, footers, comments, text boxes, and tracked changes through the round trip. On Monthly and Yearly plans you can also upload LaTeX source files (.tex).
If your draft is in Google Docs, use File › Download › Microsoft Word (.docx). If it is in Pages, use File › Export To › Word. PDFs are not accepted, because PDF is a print-fidelity format that does not preserve editable structure cleanly enough for tracked changes to survive.
Size and word limits
Each upload can be up to 45 MB on disk and 150,000 words of content. The word counter looks at body text, footnotes, headers, footers, and text boxes, which is the same surface a human copyeditor would touch. The number you see on the upload screen is the number we bill against.
If your draft is larger than 150,000 words, split it into logical sections by chapter or part and upload them separately. The style guide and English variant you pick will be applied consistently across sections.
Choosing an editor
Start on the page for the kind of writing you have: academic editing for theses, dissertations and papers, fiction editing for novels and short stories, or nonfiction editing for memoirs and other books. Each page has its own upload form, set up with the style guides that suit that kind of writing.
The three steps of the upload form
The upload form has three steps. Each one changes specific decisions the editor will make, so it is worth knowing what they do.
Step 1: Choose Language & Style
Style guide. Style guides are the published conventions that fields use to handle citations, references, headings, capitalisation, number formatting, and a long list of smaller details. Picking the right one tells the editor which set of rules to enforce.
For academic writing, RightMyWork supports APA 7th edition (common in psychology, education, and social sciences), MLA 9th edition (humanities), Harvard as set out in Cite Them Right (used across many sciences and social sciences), the Chicago Manual of Style 18th edition in both Author-Date and Notes-Bibliography variants (history, the arts, and the social sciences), OSCOLA 5th edition (UK legal writing), IEEE (engineering and computer science), Vancouver (biomedical and clinical work), and AMA 11th edition (medical literature). Fiction and nonfiction use the Chicago Manual of Style (18th edition) or the New Oxford Style Manual (3rd edition). A None option turns off citation-style enforcement entirely and applies only your English-variant conventions, and paid plans on the Editing service can use a Custom style built from your own instructions.
English variant. Two variants are supported: US English and UK English. The variant you pick controls spelling (color vs colour, organize vs organise), idiom, small grammatical preferences, and punctuation: US English uses double quotation marks with commas and periods inside the closing quote, and UK English uses single quotation marks with punctuation outside unless it belongs to the quoted material. If you write in Australian or Canadian English, pick the closer variant (UK for Australian; US or UK for Canadian) and protect any specific spellings with custom instructions on paid plans.
Step 2: Choose Editing Options
Serial comma. The serial comma is the comma before and or or in a list of three or more items, as in “apples, oranges, and pears”. Some style guides require it. Some forbid it. The toggle lets you override the default for your chosen style if you have a house preference.
Editor comments. When this is on, the editor adds Microsoft Word comments on the key edits to explain its judgement calls: why it queried a citation, why it suggested a clearer phrasing, where it noticed a structural inconsistency. With comments off, you receive a quieter document that contains only the tracked edits themselves. Most writers keep this on for the first few drafts.
Citation options. If your citations come from Zotero or Mendeley, you can choose to flatten them to plain text first. On Monthly and Yearly plans you can also turn on autofill, which looks up missing reference details and adds the ones it can verify as tracked changes. The Features article explains both.
Step 3: Add Custom Instructions (paid plans)
On a paid plan you can add short instructions of your own, such as spellings to keep or house rules your publisher uses. The editor follows them alongside the style guide you picked.
Uploading
Drop your DOCX onto the upload area on the editor page, or click to choose a file. The editor counts the words in the file, shows you the total, and asks you to confirm. If you are not signed in, this is the point where you create an account or sign in; an account is required to edit. Your settings are remembered through the sign-in step, so you do not have to pick them again.
After you confirm, the editor takes over. You can leave the page if you want. Progress is saved on the server, and you will see the result on the same job page when you come back.
While the edit runs
A progress page shows the stages as they happen: parsing the document, reading the citations, running the editorial passes, and packaging the tracked-changes file for download. Editing takes 5–10 minutes on average, and very long books can take longer.
Reviewing the result
When the edit is ready, you receive a DOCX with tracked changes. Open it in Microsoft Word and use the Review tab to walk through each suggestion. Accept the ones you agree with. Reject the ones you do not. Tracked changes in Word are fully reversible, so nothing is permanent until you accept it and save.
Footnotes, headers, captions, references, and text boxes are all touched, so review the whole document rather than just the body. The Review pane in Word will surface every suggested change in order.
On the free plan, your download is a preview: the whole document is edited, and you see a sample of the edited sections with their tracked changes and comments; the rest stays locked. You can unlock the complete file for that document, or edit on a Monthly or Yearly plan to download complete files. The Plans and billing article explains how.
Where to go next
Once you have run your first edit, the Features article explains each option in more depth, including autofill, which on Monthly and Yearly plans fills in missing reference details it can verify as tracked changes. If you are deciding between the Monthly and Yearly plans, the Plans and billing article walks through the allowances and the billing rules. If something does not behave the way you expected, Troubleshooting covers the common cases.