Revision, Review & Proofreading
Why proofread?
A poorly translated text will reflect poorly on your brand. Even when a text is translated to a very high standard, your brand could be let down by spelling, formatting or punctuation errors. If your text was originally written in English by a careful native speaker, mistakes and mistranslations could still have crept in when making changes or through a lack of knowledge. So it's essential that before a text is published, reviewed, revised or proofread by a language professional to ensure it's the best it can possibly be.
Why ask me to check your text?
I'm a native English speaker with an honours degree in English from a fancy redbrick university, so you can trust that I can write well and know how to spell. I'm also a language pedant, something that makes many people roll their eyes and tut. But my compulsion to nitpick about Oxford commas might be just what you need to make a good text great.
I have proofreading qualifications from the CIEP and the Publishing Training Centre, two organisations that set the industry standards in nitpicking. The Chartered Institute of Linguists accepted me as a Full Member based on the quality and volume of my body of work, and I'm a Proz.com Certified Pro. These credentials are your guarantee that I'm a proficient translator as well as a competent editor.
I can work with Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Word, but I'm trained in and work with SDL Trados Studio 2021. I know my way around MemoQ and Memsource Cloud too, and I'm happy to adapt to whatever platform or editing method you prefer, including old-fashioned pen and paper!
I've edited three books and done monolingual and bilingual checks of countless other texts, such as letters, CVs, blog posts, website copy, brochures, press releases, and short stories. However, I'll never attempt to work on a text that I'm not confident of being able to revise to a high standard. So if the text is, for example, medical, technical or legal, or I think it's just not the right text for me, I'll let you know.
Whether your text was originally written in English or is a Dutch text translated to English, I'll apply a boldly creative approach to create a fine-tuned English version. The finished text will be accurate, flowing, natural-sounding and readable too. I'll make sure it says what you want to say, the way you want to say it, transcreated and localised so that it works for an English-speaking audience, and the reader will never suspect they are reading a translation.
I'll do my best to work in a way that suits you. We can collaborate to perfect your text together, or I can work alone using whatever method of making suggestions and changes you prefer. Above all, I'm flexible, friendly, and scrupulous with deadlines, and if you ask my clients, they'll tell you that I'm great to work with! Here's some of their feedback about my work.
What's the difference between revision, review & proofreading?
If you were to ask a bunch of translators and project managers what revision, review, and proofreading mean, you would probably get dozens of different answers! Quite often, when a client asks me to proofread a text, what they want is a combination of two or more of these. Whether it's tightening up your short story or improving a product description, when you ask me to check a text, I'll make sure we're both clear about the sort of editing you'd like done. I've outlined the differences between the different types of checks below. To find out what these services cost, click here.
What about machine translation post-editing?
Yes, I do that too! Post-editing is slightly different because it doesn't always involve perfecting a text. On the MTPE page, you can find out more about post-editing texts translated by machine.
What sort of checks do I do?
Bilingual review
A bilingual review compares the English translation to the Dutch source text to ensure accuracy. I'll check that all meaning and information have been transferred over, there are no mistranslations, the correct terminology has been used, and the source's tone has been reproduced as well as possible.
I'll assess the extent to which the text reads naturally and fluently in English and make suggestions to help ensure that its audience is unaware that it was originally written in Dutch. I'll carry out multiple checks (using your house style guide if you wish) for spelling, grammar and punctuation, and also look at some basic formatting, such as headings and lists, to make sure they're used correctly and consistently.
I don't make changes when reviewing a text, but I'll flag any issues in a written report or by adding comments to the original document.
Monolingual review
A monolingual review assesses how well an English text stands on its own, whether it's a translated text or originally written in English. If it's a translation, the source text usually won't be referred to, although it does help to have the source available if a translation has issues.
I'll examine meaning and flow and make suggestions to help ensure that your text makes sense and is clear, understandable, and readable. I'll also carry out multiple checks (using your house style guide, if you wish) for spelling, grammar, and punctuation and look at some basic formatting, such as headings and lists, to ensure that they've been used correctly and consistently.
I don't make changes when reviewing a text, but I'll flag any issues in a written report or by adding comments to the original document.
Revision
When revising English texts and Dutch-to-English translations, I'll carry out all the checks done in a review. However, this time, as well as making suggestions, I'll make changes directly to the text to ensure that your text reads smoothly and naturally in English. These changes might involve changing words, phrases, and sentence structure and correcting spelling, grammar and punctuation.
I'll make these changes in a way that allows you to see what I've done and to accept or reject them, for example, by using Word's tracked changes function.
When revising a translation, I can work without reference to the source, but I'll usually compare it to the original Dutch text to ensure that it's an entirely faithful translation.
Proofreading
Proofreading is the very last stage before a text is published, after review or revision. It checks for the little things that were missed by everyone else who worked on the text previously.
Rather than looking at how a text reads, you could say that a proofreader addresses how a text looks. Is it spelled correctly? Has punctuation been used appropriately and consistently? Are the headings and margins uniform? Are there any missing footnotes? Are there any inconsistencies in the text itself? When proofreading, I won't change the text directly, but I'll flag any issues so you can make the changes yourself. I can do this using whatever method you are most comfortable with, whether that's comments or BSI proofreading marks, and I can use your house style guide if you wish.
Proofreading is almost always done exclusively in the target language without reference to the source text. However, sometimes it is helpful to have the source text to aid in making decisions about what needs to be changed.
The combined edit
These days, the tasks above are all often done by the same person. Although I would always recommend that a text is checked by a proofreader even after I have worked on it, I understand that time and budgets mean that it's sometimes not possible. So I'll work with you to edit your text in whatever way suits you best, combining the services above to tweak and tailor a text until it's perfectly fit for purpose.
To find out what it costs to turn your translation of a Dutch text into a knock-out English text, see the revision, review and proofreading rates page. Or get in touch with me by sending me a quick email or using the contact form on this site.
