About proofreadingservice.ch
Professional academic proofreading for Swiss students — built in Zürich, since 2010
We are not a platform. We are not a marketplace. We are a professional academic editing service, built specifically for students at Swiss universities, operated from Zürich, and staffed by native English editors with postgraduate subject-area qualifications. We have been doing one thing — editing academic English for Swiss students — since 2010. In 15 years, we have edited more than 50,000 documents. We have never used an AI tool to edit a single one.
Based in Switzerland
Zürich-based, Swiss-focused, since 2010
proofreadingservice.ch was founded in Zürich in 2010, when one of our editors — then a postdoctoral researcher at ETH — noticed that international students consistently struggled with the same problem: research that deserved to be read clearly, expressed in English that made it harder.
Swiss universities we have served since 2010
How we got here
The proofreadingservice.ch story — from one editor to a specialist team
How a small proofreading operation started by one ETH postdoctoral researcher became Switzerland's specialist academic editing service.
Founded in Zürich — one editor, one problem to solve
proofreadingservice.ch was founded in Zürich in 2010 by Dr. Anna K., a postdoctoral researcher in computational biology at ETH Zurich. After spending years helping international students in her department with their English writing informally — lab reports, thesis chapters, seminar papers — she realised the scale of the need. Non-native English speakers at Swiss universities were consistently producing research that deserved better English. Not because they couldn't think clearly — but because expressing complex scientific thought in a third language is genuinely difficult.
The first clients were ETH students in Anna's immediate network. Word spread quickly — because the editing was different. Not generic. Not Grammarly. Genuinely subject-aware, genuinely human, genuinely focused on the specific writing challenges Swiss university students face.
Growth across ETH and EPFL — thesis editing becomes the core service
By 2012, demand had grown beyond what one editor could handle. We recruited two additional PhD-qualified editors — one in physics, one in electrical engineering — both native English speakers with deep STEM backgrounds. ETH Master's thesis editing became the core of what we did: long documents, high stakes, German-to-English transfer problems, supervisor feedback, and doctoral-level academic register.
By 2014, EPFL students in Lausanne had found us through the ETH network. The French-to-English editing challenge at EPFL was different from the German-to-English challenge at ETH — and we developed specific expertise in both. A French-speaking editor with academic English expertise joined the team.
UZH law and medicine — expanding beyond STEM
In 2015, a UZH law faculty student reached out through a recommendation. Legal academic English is a completely different discipline — "the court held" not "the court said", Latin legal terms used correctly, footnote citation systems, the specific register of international and Swiss law. We recruited Dr. James R., a law-trained editor from Oxford, specifically to handle this work.
UZH medical faculty followed in 2016 — clinical case reports, IMRaD structure, medical journal English. By 2017, we were serving students across STEM, law, medicine, and humanities at four Swiss universities.
University of Geneva, HSG, and a fully online service
The service became fully online in 2018 — document upload, tracked-change editing, email delivery — allowing us to serve students at every Swiss university without geographic restriction. University of Geneva international relations and law students joined the client base. HSG St. Gallen MBA students followed, requiring a different kind of editing: business academic English, executive register, Harvard citation style.
By 2021, we had edited 20,000+ documents and maintained a 4.9-star rating across all reviews. The team had grown to eight specialist editors covering every major Swiss university faculty.
The AI moment — and our deliberate choice
When ChatGPT and AI writing tools arrived at scale in 2022, we made a deliberate choice: no AI tools in our editing process. Not because AI is useless — but because AI tools apply general rules, while our clients need specific expertise. "The court held" vs "the court said" is invisible to an AI. German academic sentence patterns carrying into English are invisible to an AI. The discussion section hedging language specific to a computational biology PhD is invisible to an AI.
We added one service in response to AI: AI Writing Polish — helping students who have legitimately used AI tools in their drafting to produce output that meets their Swiss university's academic English standards. Human editors. Always.
Today — 50,000+ documents, 4.9 stars, still human
In 2026, proofreadingservice.ch has edited more than 50,000 documents for students at ETH Zurich, EPFL, UZH, University of Geneva, HSG, and other Swiss universities. Our rating is 4.9 out of 5 across 0 verified reviews. Our repeat-customer rate is 78% — the most honest indicator that what we do works. And we have never missed a confirmed deadline without issuing a full automatic refund.
The founding principle has not changed in 15 years: your research is yours, your ideas are yours, your conclusions are yours. We make the language around them as clear and academically precise as the thinking behind them.
Our mission
Why we exist — and what we stand for
Switzerland's universities are among the best in the world. ETH Zurich ranks in the global top 10. EPFL ranks in the global top 20. The students who come here — from 180+ countries, in every discipline — are among the most capable academic minds in their generation. Many of them are writing the most important document of their academic career in their second or third language.
The quality of your English should not determine how your research is received. Our mission is to ensure it doesn't. We give non-native English writers at Swiss universities access to the same level of academic English precision that native speakers have by default — without changing a word of their research, their argument, or their conclusions.
"Your research is yours. Your ideas are yours. The language around them can always be better — and better language means your ideas get the reception they deserve."
— Dr. Anna K., Founder · proofreadingservice.ch · Zürich, 2010
What makes us different
Six things no generic editing platform can replicate
Platform proofreading services apply general rules. We apply 15 years of Swiss university experience. Here is exactly what that difference looks like.
The team behind every edit
PhD-qualified human editors — not algorithms
Every document is edited by a native English professional with a postgraduate degree in your subject area. All editors are recruited from the top 2% of applicants and reviewed quarterly.
15 years. 50,000+ documents. Always human.
Your research. Clear English.
Professional editing since 2010.
Professional, AI-free, NDA-confidential editing for ETH Zurich, EPFL, UZH, University of Geneva and HSG students. Human PhD editors. CHF pricing. Five guarantees. First order 35% off — FIRST35.