Defining the scope of freelance work
A scope of work establishes the services, deliverables, responsibilities, review process and timetable agreed by a freelancer and client. Clear inclusions, exclusions and assumptions give both parties a basis for identifying changes and discussing their consequences before additional work begins.
Written agreement and shared expectations
The scope, pricing schedule and other project details should be agreed in a signed contract before writing begins. Clients may have complex contracts or none at all, so a template needs adapting to the project. A conversation alone does not secure a project: it may be dropped or postponed by months or years, and one freelance writer advises not committing until a written contract states the work and its due date. Moving from the initial conversation to a signed scope is partly the freelancer's responsibility.
A specific agreement can prevent scope being overlooked in email exchanges. In one conference-report assignment, a client overlooked separately quoted writing time after the conference; resolving the invoice required further exchanges and a small price concession. Attendance and subsequent report production should therefore be distinguished in the agreed scope.
A budget proposal should define services clearly because a client may expect more work than the writer has understood. In one illustrative example, a writer quotes 40 hours over one week for work the client expects to take three weeks; when the mismatch emerges after the first week, the client refuses to pay for more than the quoted week.
Written agreements can take different forms. One freelancer sends a detailed project description, price and inclusions as an email attachment for confirmation when the client does not require a contract, and only rarely starts a quick-turnaround job without a formal agreement for a long-trusted client. Another discusses expectations, deadlines, reviews and payment first, then uses an emailed letter of agreement for established clients and amends a new client's contract to match the agreed parameters.
A third freelancer uses a detailed estimate describing the scope, deliverable, cost and invoicing arrangements, asks for approval to proceed and regards the client's written approval as the contract. Clients often copy that estimate into their statement of work; the freelancer still checks that the wording has not changed, for example through an added revision round.
Services, deliverables and exclusions
An agreement should state what the fee includes and excludes, including the number of drafts, graphs and review rounds and whether a literature search is required. Quotations can identify each service with its hours or share of the project price; greater detail gives a basis for explaining work outside the price or hours above the estimate. For a fixed fee, the client and writer should discuss the project and background material in depth and agree the outline. The agreement should specify who supplies the outline and background material and whether the writer researches and develops them, since research and outlining can take as long as writing or longer.
A six-step approach to scoping an estimate is:
- Identify the project type, such as a manuscript, interactive sales training module or executive summary.
- Identify the deliverable's expected length in words, document pages or published pages, and the expected numbers of tables, figures and references.
- Identify the writing style, from high science for professional audiences to plain language for patients.
- Establish whether writing sources will be supplied or must be researched and obtained, excluding out-of-pocket expenses where applicable.
- Identify the number of reviewers and revision drafts, and whether several reviewers' comments will arrive compiled or separately.
- Identify the number and length of teleconferences and face-to-face meetings.
When clients cannot supply a parameter, the freelancer using this approach states an assumption based on experience or judgement, giving the client a reason to correct it and a basis for revising the estimate. A creative brief can gather word count, referencing requirements, deadline, audience, goals, client-supplied information, interviews and meetings, revisions and any budget.
A proposal checklist also includes start date, timeline and deadline; budget; services and handling of scope changes; business hours and rush fees outside them; revisions included in a flat rate; and payment terms, accepted payment methods and expected payment date. A contract checklist for new freelancers similarly covers project scope, client inputs, deliverables, timeline, style and format, revisions, price and payment terms.
A monograph or review article
One experienced writer's scoping procedure for a print monograph or review article is:
- Define the project, objectives, audience and scope by telephone and confirm the deliverable by email.
- Start with a preferably annotated outline showing headings, a précis, tables or graphs and references for each section. It may come from the client or author, be developed together or be drafted by the writer; obtain client sign-off if the writer develops it.
- Clarify the extent of background material and who supplies it. The writer prefers client-supplied references for sponsored work; otherwise account for searching, selecting and obtaining papers or books and submit the reference list for approval. Larger projects may use an outside search service or the client's subscription.
- Establish when all background material will arrive, preferably together rather than piecemeal.
- Establish who supplies graphs and illustrations. Allow for an artist's fee and markup or the writer's own time; this practitioner estimates that writers create tables about 98% of the time.
- Identify how many people the writer will work with; one project manager and one medical expert is preferable in this approach.
- Identify the reviewers and who makes final decisions.
- Establish whether the project manager or writer reconciles contradictory reviews.
- Establish how many separately reviewed manuscript copies the writer will receive and integrate.
- Define the reviews covered by the initial estimate. This writer usually includes the first draft and one reasonable revision based on the agreed outline and references; a reasonable revision means editing only, excluding new sections, tables or graphs, references and major structural changes. Additional scope needs a revised estimate or hourly charging. Include enough time if several revisions are covered.
- Set the review turnaround. This writer recommends two to three weeks at most; a draft returned after four to six months may require relearning the subject as well as delaying payment.
- Clarify who handles submission and publication, whether online publication and supplemental material are required, and whether a printed monograph requires copy, tables and graphs only, with the client handling design, layout and printing. The writer recommends final submission by the primary author, although some clients ask the writer to handle it.
An editing assignment
A 2017 practitioner checklist uses these questions to establish editing scope:
- Is the document ready to edit or still being written?
- How much work is anticipated, and how long might editing take?
- What components are included: manuscript, slides, storyboard, video transcript or workshop materials? Must an established series style be matched?
- Is the format hard copy, Word, Adobe or something else?
- What is the total page, word or slide count? Are slide notes included?
- Is the work proofreading, copyediting, developmental editing, rewriting or style comparison? Does the client want only grammar, punctuation and spelling corrected?
- Are consistency, formatting or organisation included? Is it a first or revised edition?
- How should edits be marked and files returned?
- How many revisions require review?
- Are a bibliography, reference list or index included? Must references be checked against PubMed, the Library of Congress or Amazon, as appropriate?
- How many figures and tables are included, and what formatting do tables and legends need?
- Is fact-checking required? Will the client provide reference PDFs? Must calculations be checked? What annotation style is needed in the file and PDFs, and will the file and references undergo medical-legal review?
- Is a clean-up round after author review included?
- What is the schedule or deadline?
- Which style guide and dictionary apply? The 2017 checklist asks specifically about the ninth or tenth edition of the AMA Manual of Style.
- Is there a style sheet or standards document, or should one be created?
- Who is the contact, which communication channel do they prefer, and will there be direct contact with authors or other team members?
- Is a signed contract or nondisclosure agreement required?
- What is the budget?
- What are the payment terms and cycle, such as net 30 or net 45, and are payments made in increments?
Descriptions of editing levels can help explain and clarify services to clients; the Bay Area Editors' Forum provided such descriptions in 2010.
Revisions, reviews and changes
The agreement should define the number and extent of reviews and revisions. One freelancer usually proposes two review cycles and finalisation, varying with client and document; a known hierarchical process may require three or four, or an explicit increase in cost for extra cycles.
A 2007 recommendation includes a first draft and one reasonable revision, defining that revision as editing and minor rewriting, excluding new material, references or tables and changes to the agreed structure; major revisions not caused by the writer should be charged hourly or increase the fixed fee. Another freelancer explicitly includes one in-scope revision round and prices additional revisions hourly or through a renegotiated fee.
The agreement should specify what happens when scope or timelines change. If a client delays review, delivery may need renegotiating despite the writer's efforts to limit disruption. One freelancer's project-fee agreement expressly provides for an increased fee if parameters expand or direction changes. A timetable and reasonable turnaround should be established for each project, with last-minute rush work outside the agreed scope charged separately; a complimentary telephone consultation can clarify scope before quoting.
A 2007 recommendation allows three to four weeks, or another reasonable period chosen by the writer, for client review, with later revisions and second or third revisions charged hourly. Reviews delayed by six to nine months can require much more time because the writer has moved to other subjects, unless retained to work continually on that client's material.
Scope can change even when an assignment initially appears familiar. One writer agreed to update a previous year's symposium needs assessment, hoping to gain therapeutic-area experience and a later enduring-material assignment, but found that the new agenda did not overlap with the old. The work required a new assessment; she explained the change and obtained additional time and a new contract, although the later assignment did not follow.
Assumptions and limits of the agreement
A detailed contract can clarify responsibilities, timing, deliverables and revisions, but cannot prevent every client problem. One experienced freelancer considered many contracts too vague about scope changes and delayed source materials and doubted that any contract protected against an unscrupulous client. She therefore prepares a project expectations and assumptions document, often within the proposal or estimate, stating each party's responsibilities and inputs and the assumptions and caveats based on available information. It requires changes in writing or work proceeds on the stated assumptions; she regarded it as probably not legally binding, reported that clients rarely incorporated it in their contracts and that none had submitted a written change in more than 25 years. She recommends sending it early and revising it if scope changes.