If you’re looking to move up in the translation market, more effective proofreading is critical. If you’re the type of person who cringes at the sight of an error in print, make sure that your translations aren’t contributing to the problem, and give your clients that extra quality step that marks your service as above average! Here are a few tips I’ve gleaned over the years, and feel free to add your own!
- It’s hard to proofread your own work, but sometimes you have to do it. A cross-editing partner is really invaluable if you work for direct clients. If you work for agencies and can’t afford to hire out your proofreading, try to do as thorough a job as possible on your own work.
- Proofread in a different format than the original. I prefer to proofread from a hard copy; I print the target document, then proofread in front of two computer monitors with the target document in one window and the source document in the other, so that I can make corrections as soon as I see the errors. If your work (i.e. Flash animations, graphics, etc.) doesn’t lend itself to being printed, at least try to change the size, font, color, anything to make the target text look different enough that you have to pay attention to it.
- Pay particular attention to easily-botched numbers and words. Check every digit in every number. Check every letter in every name and place name. Check every negative expression to make sure that you wrote the correct version (i.e. always versus never).
- Realize that the majority of errors consist of the wrong word, not a misspelled word. The spell-checker saves you from cracking a dictionary to remember whether recommendation has one m or two, but it doesn’t save you from typing fat instead of fact, or asses instead of assets, or any other number of mortifying blunders. So force yourself to slow down; when I took editing classes with Alice Levine, she advised pointing at each word with a pen, and also never proofreading when you’re tired.
- Watch out for your typical errors. For some reason, I habitually put the space in the wrong place when I’m typing two small words in a row, such as “tot his” instead of “to this.” Sometimes the spell-checker saves me (“thi stime” instead of “this time”) but “tot his” slips through!.
- While you’re at it, mark the errors in the source document. The client may or may not be concerned with these, but you can add a little value and it’s not much extra work. Also, I think it’s almost easier to find errors in your non-native language because you spent so many years drilling the correct spellings and conjugations!
Indeed, proofreading your own work when you don’t have the time to let it sit (and your mental hard drive empty) for a few days is a bear!
That’s a great list of suggestions, Corinne! Here are a few other things one can do to catch the last bugs and thugs:
– To proofread just for spelling, read backwards – from the last word of your document to the first. This feels strange at first, but it does help me focus on the ‘words’ and avoid flipping into content mode.
– To proofread for style, read aloud! Nothing catches a heavy or unclear turn of phrase more effectively.
– To check spacing, turn on Word’s paragraph mark; that always helps me find that lingering extra space or two.
Top professional service doesn’t end when you send the file to the client. It’s wise to offer clients a final review before the document is printed or uploaded on the Web – funny things happen to text during the graphic design process that can make you cringe — especially if you’ve signed your copy!
Great advice, Corinne, especially the one about printing and proofreading from hard copy. That helps identify not just typos but also clunky writing – you can always tell when translators have delivered a text directly from the screen.
To check spacing, I always run a “find and replace” after I’ve done my spell-check: “find [2 spaces]” and “replace with [1 space]”
Patricia’s comment on offering clients a final review is pretty useful too. Mine sometimes add a sentence or two to the document. Their additions may – or may not – be correct and fit in with the surrounding text, so it’s always a good idea to run a final check.
Thanks for the great advice.
@wordstogoodeffect, very good tip.
Using the same method, I also check :
-space+period
-space+semi-colon (except for French)
-space+colon (except for French)
-double period
-open bracket + space, space+ close bracket
etc.
I have also seen some Framemaker documents where there was a non-breaking space followed by a “normal” space… that can also be searched.
Great tips, as always! I also use the “find and replace” to check for punctuation errors: it takes very little time and can prove very useful.
Apsic Xbench is a freeware tool that can be used to run customized checklists looking for punctuation errors, wrong numbers or even glossary adherence. It works on bilingual files and can be downloaded from here:
http://www.apsic.com/en/downloads.aspx
Apsic comparator is useful to see what kind of edits have been done to your translation.
Hope you find this useful
While proofreading a hard copy of a translated document might be helpful, I believe that the environmental impact of printing out every document to be proofread greatly outweighs such benefits, at least in many cases.
Good tips Corinne. I am very guilty of the spacing error too. I think it happens when I’m trying to type too fast.
Reading aloud for style – spot on Patricia. I made a couple of changes to the most recent tranfree when I recorded the podcast version and it didn’t quite sound right. đ
Thomas. What about the environmental impact of the whole print run of your translation having to be reprinted when they find the errors because you didn’t want to print it once? (OK, that won’t happen in all cases).
I’m a big advocate of printing out work for proofing. I ALWAYS find stuff I’ve missed on-screen. The worst case was a job we did while away at a location with no printer and without the spellchecker in the right language. đ But that’s best forgotten about – it still hurts.
You can also try to mitigate environmental impact by printing on the back of old work or using a printer with duplex function. Or, if your eyes are good enough, print “2-up” (two pages on each side of paper). When proofing my publications, I print 2-up and duplex – thus using a quarter of the paper and a lot less ink.
Great post as always Corinne! If I can I do print out a hard copy for proofreading, but I have not thought about having two screens with source and target open in front of me and correcting errors both in source and target as I go. This must save some time and frustration from trying to put in all the scribbles from the hard copy later.
Good advice!I agree it’s very difficult to proofread something you wrote or translated.In both cases, I think, you pay more attention to the content than to anything else. Anyway, I think nothing is better than having the printed page in front of you and read it several times. It’s amazing how many mistakes you can find!
Nice post.
Instead of proofreading a hard copy, I like to change the font family and size for my final run through. This gives a new perspective, which is particularly important when one has been working on an extended piece for days or even weeks.
Another tip, but one which may annoy family and colleagues, is to read the work aloud.