Proofreading – what’s involved?

Perhaps surprisingly, August is one of the noisiest months here in the country! The farmers are working from dawn till dusk (and beyond) to get the harvest in, and for the past weeks, the combine harvesters have been rumbling away constantly in the distance. Like the farmers, I’ve been working most of August – one of the big benefits of being a freelancer is that you can choose to space your holidays out and avoid being off work at the same time as everyone else.

Proofreading – what’s involved?

At this time of year, I routinely receive requests for proofreading from people with dissertations or final theses that need to be submitted by the beginning of the new academic year. I often find myself explaining what my proofreading services involve, and so I thought this might be a good opportunity to summarise what I do when I proofread a text, and share some tips for things to try before hiring a proofreader.

When I proofread, this usually involves three rounds of going through a text.

·      Round One: A first, extremely thorough read on my computer, where I make corrections to grammatical and spelling errors in the text. I also make small amendments to the text to ensure it “flows” better, and insert comments where I think more major intervention is required – for example, if the argument does not make sense, or information is missing (such as references) that I am unable to locate. If requested, I will also adapt references and citation to a particular style. Usually these changes are made using the “Track Changes” function in Word. If I am sent a PDF document, I will highlight passages that need correction and insert the correction as a comment.

·      Round Two: I print out a hard copy of a “clean” version of the text (i.e., one where all my suggestions have been accepted) and read it again on paper. It is always surprising how many more errors I am able to find when I read a text on paper rather than on a screen! I write corrections and comments into the hard copy by hand, and then return to the computer to add them to the original file.

·      Round Three: By now, the text is usually in pretty good shape. I now use computer magic to go through the text again with a spellchecker. This will often pick out a few last typos. Sometimes I will search for particular terms to make sure they are used consistently throughout the text (e.g. “dataset” versus “data set” – the spellchecker won’t pick up something like this). Last of all, I run a search for multiple spaces – these are often hard to see on screen and are often not obvious on paper, either, especially if the text is justified. Once all of this is done, I scan the text one last time just to make sure of everything.

My top 4 tips for DIY proofreading

Some of these steps can be applied to a text before passing it on to a professional proofreader and may in fact reduce the overall cost of your proofreading bill.

·      Number One: Run a spellcheck. It’s so simple it almost sounds stupid. But computer tools like spellcheckers really can be a big help, picking up on a number of mistakes you may not have noticed. They can be especially useful when you’re writing in a language that is not your native tongue. Remember: If your word processing programme is set to a language other than the one you are writing in, you will have to change the settings of your spellchecker.

·      Number Two: Run a search for double spaces. The convention in printed English these days (including on the web) is not to have more than one space after a word or a punctuation mark in a running text (back in the days of typewriters, it was common to leave a double space after a full stop to provide a clear break between sentences). Double spaces tend to sneak in when you copy and paste parts of text. Run a search to help find and eliminate them.

·      Number Three: Print your text out and read it in hard copy. Nothing reveals mistakes like a paper copy of your text. Yes, it means you have to use up extra toner and extra paper. Yes, it’s going to take a bit more of your time. But it really will be worth it.

·      Number Four: Choose whether you are using British or American English…and stick to it! British English and American English are the two main variants of the English language, and as a writer you will probably be asked to use one or the other. If you haven’t been given any specification, you should choose for yourself which variant you prefer to use. Regardless which one you end up with, it is important not to confuse the two. Change the setting on your spellchecker to make sure you pick up on the differences! (You can find a useful list of differences on Wikipedia, and if you want something more thorough, the Economist Style Guide which devotes an entire section to the differences between UK and US.)

Here’s to many successful proofreading endeavours and a good start to the autumn!

A Hot Topic: Branding

We are actually having a heatwave! This is one of those times I find myself (once more) deeply grateful to be living in the countryside where it doesn’t get quite as relentlessly hot as in town and there are plenty of shady places for both humans and animals!

A Hot Topic: Branding

Throughout this hot month I’ve been thinking a lot about a pretty hot topic: branding. Before I became self-employed, “branding” was a word I associated primarily with cattle farming and with big, slick multimillion corporations. However, once I set up my translation business, I realised very quickly that not only did I need a clearly defined target market – I also needed a way of becoming visible to that particular market in such a way that they would remember me when a need for my services arose. I needed a brand!

Initially, my idea of what this “brand” was to be like was fairly hazy. However, as I worked with a lot of clients in the creative and cultural industries, I knew I wanted a website and business materials that reflected that creative flair in a way that was both professional (I wanted to be taken seriously as an expert in my field) and personal (I wanted to build strong relationships with my clients as individuals, not just as potential sources of income). I was pretty confident that I could produce the words to convey this effectively, but I needed more than just words – and here I enlisted the help of my artist sister Catherine Hiley, who produced a series of beautiful images that I felt captured what I wanted to convey to a T. I then worked with Astrid Nielsch, another artist and web designer, to create a website that incorporated these images and my text, reflecting my core values of creativity, professionalism and personal service. I am still thrilled with the result, several years down the line!

However, since then I have learnt a lot more about what a “brand” is. This month, my thoughts on the subject received fresh input in a brilliant workshop led by creative branding expert Jo Bradshaw of Minestrone Soul. Many of us solopreneurs feel self-conscious (or downright megalomaniac) when thinking about creating a “brand” – isn’t that something we should be leaving to the really big players? However, Jo encourages her clients to think about branding as something that is not really about them so much as about their “tribe”, or target client base. “A lot of marketing is really about providing a mirror so your tribe can see themselves and feel witnessed,” she writes. “Think about branding as the coat hook next to the mirror. It’ll give you and your people a sense of coming ‘home.’” A brand helps to reassure our clients that they have come to the right place for their needs.

Image © Catherine Hiley – www.cahiley.com

A brand also needs to reflect our core values, as “when your ideal client lands on your website (or lands face to face with you), they actually have a real need to know that you see eye-to-eye”, writes Jo. Ideally, it will convey your own unique strengths and skills, traditionally known as “unique selling points”. Jo charmingly defined USPs as “unique squiggly places”, comparing our strengths and skills to the squiggly shape of an enzyme travelling round the body looking for its ideal fit. Obviously, the more clearly defined our USPs, the easier it is for an ideal fit (our ideal client) to be found! 

Bearing all this in mind, I undertook a first miniature attempt at “rebranding” some of my business materials this month – in particular, my business cards! My old cards were home-designed and printed for me (very kindly) for free by the print room at the college where I used to teach. They were fine for starting out, but by now I felt they no longer conveyed the level of professionalism and class my brand required. Rather than use a cheap online printing service, I decided to work with local bespoke printers Spiegl Press (who I knew from a local business networking group) and we have worked together on a beautiful design that includes one of my sister’s images. The final results have not been produced yet, but I am confident they will be both creative and professional with a personal touch – exactly the qualities I want my “brand” to convey!

Some further resources on this topic:

• Jo Bradshaw at Minestrone Soul is a source of inspiring information when it comes to creative branding! Thanks, Jo, for letting me share some of your insights in this blog post.
• Valeria Aliperta of Rainy London Translations has written a very popular series of articles on branding for translators in Institute of Translation and Interpreting’s Bulletin, and her website and social media pages contain many excellent examples of successful branding.
• Two translator colleagues whose websites I consider great examples of brands that work well are Megan Onions of Speechmarks Translation  and Sarah Appleby of Sarah Appleby Translations.

Does your translation business work for you?

I always feel this is a particularly green time of year; the colour of the new leaves has ripened into a deeper green and the grass in the fields and gardens is thick and lush, needing to be kept down with regular mowing – or grazing! The long evenings are beautiful and everything seems more energetic as we move towards midsummer. I am currently coming to the end of a long book translation project and am looking forward to moving on to the next exciting things I have lined up.

Does your translation business work for you?

Over the past weeks, I have been thinking about two statements by colleagues I heard at the recent ITI conference. One stated she worked between 60 and 70 hours a week “as she liked her job”. Another colleague mentioned that she never goes longer than an hour without looking at her work emails and even checks them on her phone when out shopping or socialising so she doesn’t miss out on potential jobs. The implicit assumptions are that a) if you like your job you spend most of your waking hours working and b) you have to be constantly on call, otherwise you run the risk of not getting enough work (or not enough high-quality work).

Well, I disagree. In fact, I disagree completely and wholeheartedly! I’m not saying you can’t work that way if that’s what you enjoy. But it is by no means compulsory to work 70 hours a week to be successful, nor do you need to be at the beck and call of your clients all the time in order to get good work. In fact, I think that if you are working like this, one of the most likely reasons is that you have the wrong clients. You have clients who:

• Don’t pay you enough, which means you have to work longer hours to make ends meet. 
• Aren’t interested in you as an individual service provider – their main priorities are price and speed of turnaround.

What you need is:

• Clients who pay you a decent price for your services so that you can decide whether to go on working till midnight because you want to – or have a free evening because that’s what you prefer.
• Clients who want to work with you, rather than just anyone they think can do the job.

If your clients want to work with you, they are usually willing to work to your schedule as far as possible. They respect that your time is limited and let you know in advance when they would like to send you some of their work. I have clients who often give me several months’ notice for projects they want me to work on and currently have work booked into 2014. If your clients’ priority is working with you, it won’t matter whether you respond to their emails within 15 minutes, an hour, or even 12 hours. You won’t need to check your phone every 10 minutes – unless, of course, you want to!

Illustration © C.A. Hiley

I feel quite strongly about this as one of the main reasons I left my lecturing job and set up my own business was that I wanted to get away from long work hours that left me exhausted and people who expected me to be constantly accessible. At the beginning of my translation career, I was told I needed to invest in a smartphone so I could respond immediately to offers of work. For the record: In my whole translating career so far, I have not had a single job that I got because I responded quickly (and can only think of one I didn’t get because I didn’t respond immediately). I soon realised that in my target market, this is simply not the way things work: people spend lots of time preparing their texts, and because they are highly invested in their work, they care who translates it and leave sufficient time for it to be done well. And this means that I in turn am able to work in a way that is sustainable for me.

What is sustainable will differ from one translator to the next, but whatever it is, I just want to affirm it is possible to build a translation business that works for you.

Wishing you all lots of warm midsummer sunshine,

'No regrets, none at all, I wouldn’t change it for anything, you know.'

I have been enjoying the merry month of May and its green leaves and blossom, despite the fact we’ve been having what the Germans call “Aprilwetter” – changeable weather of the kind you’d expect in April! There’s been a lot going on this month: a lot of interesting work, the conference of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting, and the launch of a book that I was lucky enough to be involved in over the past six months.

Destination UK - 'No regrets, none at all, I wouldn’t change it for anything, you know.'

While I am lucky enough to enjoy the vast majority of my work, now and again a project comes along that touches and engages me on a whole range of levels and ends up with a very special place in my heart. Photographer Marion Trestler’s  beautiful book Destination UK was one of these. An Austrian living and working in London, Marion travelled the length and breadth of Britain over a number of years to document the stories of Austrian women who immigrated to the UK between 1945 the the early 1960s. It is not widely known today that following World War II, the British and Austrian governments entered into a formal agreement that Austria would supply young unmarried women to work in the British industry, mostly in the cotton mills of Derbyshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire. Following this first wave of immigrants, many further young Austrian women came to the UK to work as domestic helpers, nurses or au pairs. Many of them married British men and had families; others recognised there was little for them in postwar Austria and decided to stay in a country they felt offered them better chances of making a good life for themselves. Marion took photographic portraits of the women and recorded interviews in which they shared their experiences, thoughts and feelings. She writes: “My intent has been to paint an authentic portrait of each woman, in pictures and words, and to create a tribute to each of them whilst preserving a part of contemporary history in the form of a book. “ 

I became involved in this project both as a language editor and a translator once the selection of quotes had been completed. It was vital that whoever was involved have an understanding not just of English and German, but also of Austrian dialect and culture – luckily, as I grew up in Bavaria not far from the Austrian border (and have a half-Austrian mother-in-law and a Viennese godmother), I fitted the bill! When editing the interviews, our concern was to “smooth” the oral language into a form that would be easily readable but nonetheless preserve the immediacy and authenticity of each woman’s voice. As some interviewees switched frequently between English and German, we also had to decide on where to translate quotes or parts of quotes and where to leave them. Our little team – Marion, myself and Karina Matejcek of KAMACO – quickly established a method of working on the files that suited us all (thanks the gods for Dropbox!). Excitement grew as our work neared completion and the graphic designers produced the proofs of the book, which contained not only the interviews and Marion’s photographs, but also pictures of the interviewees as young women and reproductions of their immigration documents as well a scholarly introduction by Dr. Jill Lewis of the University of Swansea.

Marion and I met in London on April 18^th and she gave me a first copy of Destination UK, hot off the press. It was an emotional moment! I always feel that being given a book you have worked so hard on is a bit like being given a newborn baby. It was thrilling to leaf through the pages and see everything on paper for the first time. But there was still work to be done – for there was to be an official book launch and exhibition of Marion’s photos in Vienna in mid-May and another exhibition planned for London for November. So a press folder needed to be put together in both English and German and blurbs for the exhibition and the sponsors written in both languages. It was a rush, but finally everything was completed and the Vienna launch took place on May 16^th.

So what was it that touched me most about this project? For one, I had the opportunity to collaborate with some wonderful people (thank you, Marion and Karina!). But above all I was fascinated by the stories told by the women themselves. As someone who has moved around a lot, I recognised some of the themes that appeared, such as intense homesickness ('Heimweh, that can be an illness, it can make you ill') as well as the sense of freedom gained from moving to a different country. I found myself smiling at former au pairs’ descriptions of Swinging London versus staid 1960s Vienna. I was moved to tears by the misery and poverty faced by some of these women back in their home country during and after the War; for many of them, the wages they earned in the cotton mills were the first pay they had ever received. Some of them were forced to leave sweethearts and children behind; others came and found sweethearts and husbands. All of them worked incredibly hard to build new lives for themselves – and luckily, most of them found the British to be friendly and welcoming. I can only echo Marion’s words when she says: “All these women have my greatest admiration.”

To celebrate the launch of the book and exhibition (showing until June 8^th at Galerie base-level, Heinrichsgasse 4, Eingang Rudolfsplatz 13, 1010 Vienna), I am giving away a free copy of Destination UK (normal price £25)! In order to enter, please leave me a comment at the end of this blog post. I will pick a winner from the entries on June 14^th and will post the book out to the lucky person!

Procrastination and how to overcome it

I'm sure everyone in the U.K. is sharing my relief that at long last we have some warmer weather! I'm enjoying the long, light evenings now we have switched to summer time, and walking back home tonight after a yoga class at the village hall I was even pleasantly surprised by a few warm drops of spring rain. Every roadside and garden here seems to be full of cheery daffodils!

Procrastination and how to overcome it

I had originally planned to write about something completely different this month, but as the days passed and I did not feel inspired in the slightest I have decided that in fact writing about resistance to writing and to working might be a more appropriate subject.

All of us who are self-employed or whose work is largely self-directed will have battled at some point with the dread enemy procrastination. When there is noone else in charge breathing down our necks it is often tempting to put off things that need to be done until the last possible moment. And although I'm normally reasonably good at not procrastinating, the fact that this blog post has been so long in coming shows me that I definitely need to think about the problem.

So, why do we do it? Quite simple: we're afraid. We're afraid that carrying out the task at hand will either involve something unpleasant or possibly have unpleasant consequences. And while the thing we're afraid of can be something as simple as we'll not get another sunny day until next year so I'd better get outside and make good use of this one or something as profound as if I complete and submit this paper it might get rejected, which will confirm to myself and everyone around me I'm a failure and will never get tenure, fear is ultimately what it boils down to.

What happens if we do it? Again, it's quite simple: we don't get important stuff done as quickly as we could. This means that paradoxically we spend more time on the unpleasant task than if we were just able to focus on it, and have less time for other, more enjoyable things, like spending time in the sun. Even if we distract ourselves from the unpleasant task at hand by doing something more enjoyable – I'll just play one more round of Spider Solitaire – we're probably not really enjoying the game of solitaire as much as we would if we had finished the unpleasant task first and were free to play solitaire for as long as we liked. Ultimately, we're focusing neither on what we have to do nor what we want to do, which means our brain is stuck in some kind of limbo instead of being in the present moment. Furthermore, this lack of focus means we are actually more likely to bring about precisely the unpleasant results we wish to avoid!

Illustration © C.A. Hiley

How can we avoid doing it? This is where it gets interesting and more complicated. Everyone will probably have their own techniques (which I'd love to hear about – do leave me a comment below if you have any to share!), but these are some that work for me.

Focusing on the real problem: Instead of "Argh, I really don't want to translate yet another 2000 words on XXX", listen in and hear that little voice saying, "I'm scared this client might not like my work and might complain and I might not get any more work from them but I really need another regular client." For me, acknowledging the fear always helps.

Focusing on what the client needs: Think about why the client needs your service. What would the consequence for them be if you didn't do your work well or even didn't do it at all? A sloppy translation or proofreading job might, in the absolutely worst case, cost one of my clients a publication in an important journal, or make the difference between minor and major corrections in their PhD viva. Focusing on what's in the work for others rather than myself can often be really motivating for me.

 Reward yourself: Sometimes I promise myself a reward once I've completed necessary work I didn't feel like doing. This might be something like going for a lovely walk, going out for a meal, or even buying a treat of some kind. Really celebrate when you have managed to get a difficult task done instead of just moving on to the next thing (if you want more inspiring reading on the importance of celebration, here's a great blog post by the fabulous Corrina Gordon-Barnes).

The power hour: This is one I picked up from another brilliant lady, Natalie Fee (she's written a fantastic blog post on procrastination - read it here). You set aside just one hour – short enough not to feel threatening, but long enough to get some serious work done if you focus. Really commit to working just that one hour, with no distractions – no emailing, no web surfing, no social media, no Spider Solitaire. Even though I know from experience this one works, I'm still surprised each and every time how much I get done!

And lo and behold, just by systematically setting out my thoughts on procrastination and why I do it, I've completed the dreaded blog post! Not every piece of work I feel resistance to is so easily overcome, but the same solutions can be applied to all of them.

Wishing you all productive, efficient working days as the days grow longer,

Translation and Creativity

I was hoping that we would be well and truly into spring at this point, but the first part of March has remained cold and frosty here in Rutland. Nonetheless, this year’s first lambs have been born, and their little high-pitched bleats can be heard across the village. I also heard the first skylark of the year when out on my morning walk the other day, so hope that is another sign the warmer weather is on its way!

Translation and creativity

My big excitement for this month has been attending the launch of a new poetry anthology for which one of my poems had been selected (I publish poems as “Meggie Hiley”, and have had work included in publications such as the Earth Pathways Diary and Goddess Pages). From 2001 to 2012, the journal Earth Love Poetry Magazine published nature poetry, donating all money raised to environmental charities. Sadly, rising costs meant the journal had to close down last year, but editor Tracy Patrick wanted to end by celebrating its achievements in a final anthology. I had contributed several poems to the journal over the years and was very excited that one of them was selected for inclusion. The anthology was officially launched two weeks ago at the Scotia Bar in Glasgow, with many of the poets featured present (including me).  The volume contains over 100 pages of poems and some beautiful original artwork, and can be purchased here for the very reasonable price of £6 – all proceeds are donated to conservation charities, so it makes for both an aesthetically and ethically pleasing gift!

This event, among other things, has got me thinking more closely about my creative writing. Up until recently, I did not really see my translation work and creative work as related to one another (maybe because I just had not thought about it properly!). Now, however, I can see that in actual fact most of my translations (if not all) are creative work. Despite the fact that the translated texts I produce are based on an original by someone else, I am still engaged in creating a new piece of writing that, while it needs to approximate the meaning of the original, needs to be easy or indeed pleasurable to read in English. I want my translations to be aesthetically pleasing and “flow”, just like my poetry.

Illustration © C.A. Hiley

With this in mind, I now plan to try and do more creative writing, not just for its own sake, but because it helps me to hone the writing skills I need in my translation work. I am currently experimenting with writing “morning pages” as suggested by Julia Cameron, author of the bestseller The Artist’s Way as a way of getting my creative juices flowing before sitting down at the computer and attacking my translations. I also really appreciate reading examples of good writing – be that journalism, fiction, poetry, or even manuals or instruction – as useful models for my own translated texts. I’m not alone here: most translators I know are avid readers and see reading as part of their professional development, not just because of the content they acquire, but also because it helps to improve their style further. But we shouldn’t just be reading – we should be writing as well, whether that’s blogging, writing articles for trade journals, or writing for our own private pleasure, because when it comes down to it, that’s what we translators do for a living – WRITE.

Hoping that balmy spring days lie ahead for all of us (in the northern hemisphere at least),

A love letter to my clients

The snowdrops are out! How I love seeing their little bell-like heads shining above the dark soil. We have several different kinds of snowdrop in our little cottage garden, each one prettier than the next. Snowdrops mark the beginning of what I think is England’s most beautiful season – spring. Years of living in continental climates have really taught me to appreciate the long, drawn-out British spring, where we seem to move slowly from the blooming of one gorgeous flower to the next – snowdrops, daffodils, bluebells and apple blossom, roses…

But I get ahead of myself. We’re still in February, which is not just the month of snowdrops, but also – if you want to believe what the card and flower industries tell us – the month of love and St. Valentine’s Day. So for this month’s post, I thought I would write a kind of love letter to those people without whom I could not do the job I love doing – yes, that’s right, I’m talking about clients!

A love letter to my clients

So why do my clients deserve a love letter?

Because they are interesting: When I set up my business, I made a conscious choice about the kind of work I wanted to do and the kind of people I wanted to work with. (After all, as a business owner you get to call the shots!) So I have been lucky enough to work with some fascinating people from all over the globe – scholars, researchers, artists, writers, journalists. And through translating and editing their work I am able to gain insight into their interests and passions.

Because they are passionate about their work: I choose the word “passion” purposely, for the one of the things that makes my clients so interesting is their love of what they do. On the one hand, this raises the stakes for you as a translator and editor – your client is making not just a financial, but an emotional investment in your services – but it also makes your work much more rewarding.

Because they give me an opportunity to learn: Why work with people who don’t challenge you and help you to grow? It’s not my idea of fulfilling work at any rate! The texts and the kind of work that my clients provide me with is constantly broadening my horizons and forcing me to “think outside the box” (I don’t really like that phrase, but it fits here). I have learnt huge amounts of fascinating stuff through them – some of which has made me change the way I view and do things in my own life.

Illustrations © C.A. Hiley

Because they appreciate what I do: Last but not least, all of us like to be recognised for the work we do. I am lucky enough that most of my clients really appreciate the work I do for them and let me know it (and let others know it too!). Getting an appreciative email or card really makes my day! In fact, I often print these messages out and put them up round my work space to remind myself of my clients’ awesomeness and why my work is great.

So, dear clients, this is why you are getting this love letter from me! Thanks for being such wonderful people and please keep on doing the wonderful work that you do!

Fellow translators and business folks, let’s share the love – what are the things you love about your clients? I’d love (there’s that word again…) to hear them!