In reconsideration – Karen Tkaczyk on editing and proofreading

 

[edited document*]

As part of a series of podcasts, Paul Urwin of Proz.com interviewed Karen Tkaczyk, an experienced editor and translator. As the podcast is not a formal workshop but instead a series of questions and answers, Karen was unable to go into depth on many of the important issues she raised. I wish to add some thoughts on three matters that are of importance to both translators and editors, specifically the obligation to proofread, the time involved and criteria for editorial intervention.

[eye chat & glasses]

Both Paul and Karen were very polite and understated in their statements that translators must include proofreading in their translation process. At minimum, this QA involves spellcheck and a quick rereading. Ideally, they recommended use of a QA tool, whether one intrinsic to the CAT tool and/or an external program such as Xbench. Ideally, a second pair of eyes, as required by ISO standards, would read the text but freelancers often find this step impractical due to time or budgetary factors. However, clearly failure to apply any proofreading process leads to substandard work. In my experience, far too many translators, even experienced ones, expect someone else to perform this step. While it is very challenging at best to produce a perfect translation, that difficulty does not excuse translators from the obligation to strive to do so as much as circumstances allow. Proofreading and editing are an essential step in a proper translation process.

[results, not excuses]

The next issue is how long this QA should take. In their discussion, Paul and Karen mentioned three percentages, all relevant. If the translator of the specific documents reviews the document, it should take around 20% of the translation time. An external review of a properly proofed translation should take around 30-40% while for poorly written texts, revision can reach 50% or even, in the worst cases, justify a retranslation. These numbers are relevant to both translators and agencies. For translators, rates and deadlines need to reflect this time. An overly tight deadline may not allow proper proofreading, which results in a poor translation. Regardless of whether the translator informs customers of such a risk, they are often unhappy with the result, resulting in a lost client. It is far better business practice to refuse impossible deadlines. In freelancer relations with agencies, many project managers are not very realistic on how long it takes to properly review translations, especially long ones that require several sittings. Often but not always education and insistence develop their awareness of the required QA time. Again, it is far better to deliver early than to make excuses for late delivery or fail to properly review the text. In summary, linguists must insist on sufficient time for proofing but the amount is variable.

[3-face customer satisfaction]

The final matter discussed was the essence of the revision process itself. Both Karen and Paul made the point that the task of reviewers was to identify errors, not to produce their ideal text. To clarify, as no two people write the same way, no two people produce the exact same translation of the identical text. One translation may be partially or completely superior to the other in some criteria but both express the content and serve the purpose. Therefore, the appropriate role of reviewers is not to impose their phrasing or linguistic tendencies but to identify and correct issues that would interfere with the message of the text. Admittedly, there is a fine line between mandatory and preferential changes but editors need to make evert effort to be on the right side of that line. Not only do unnecessary changes poison the atmosphere between translators and reviewers, they waste everybody’s time and money. Overzealous editors often spend hours unnecessarily rewriting acceptable translations and then cause the anguished translators to spend hours justifying their original choices. Time is money. The host mentioned that one cause of this extraneous effort was editors’ need to justify their existence. As a frequent reviewer of translation, I have never had any negative feedback in writing that the translation is fine and making at most a few minor changes. I can also attest how difficult it is to switch hats from translator to editor. However, the effort of distinguishing the tasks is much less than the effort required by the all parties in the case of unnecessary rewriting. Reviewing is a fundamentally different task from translation.

Overall, I enjoyed the podcast and hope to find time to view more in the future. Both new and experienced translators and reviewers can profit from a review of the fundamentals and discussion of the specifics. The podcast reinforced the notions that translation review is a necessary, time-consuming and distinct task. Any translator can profit from listening to it in full and reconsidering their attitude and approach to proofing and editing.

* Picture captions allow the blind to fully access the Internet.

Picture credits: Pixaby