Proofreading, Editing, Review, Independent Review

When it comes to translation quality assurance, various terms are used in the translation industry to describe different tasks and processes associated with this step. Those language service providers and translation buyers who have an established workflow use specific terminology. Others may refer to these tasks and processes less consistently and sometimes mix the meaning. To avoid confusion, Velior also adheres to specific terminology as described in this article.

Bilingual Editing

In our experience, the main term used to describe a general quality assurance procedure is “proofreading.” It usually means making sure that the translation is free from any errors and is used by the clients who simply want to ensure their translation is both faithful to the original (no mistranslations, omissions, etc.) and correct in terms of target language spelling, punctuation, and grammar. And here is where the confusion sets in, because traditionally proofreading means reading the typeset copy just before it is printed. Therefore, the proofreading in its original sense does not involve comparing the source against the target for errors such as mistranslations or omissions—a proofreader reads the translated text only. With such “proofreading” requests, we always explain this to the client and confirm what they want specifically to eliminate confusion. We call this service “bilingual editing” or simply “editing.”

Another term for such “proofreading” is “independent review,” which is mainly used by the clients who, while buying a translation from a vendor, also want them to use a separate (independent) linguist to check this translation. In this sense, this term does not apply to Velior, because all our translations are subject to editing by a second linguist. This means that by buying translation from us, you get the independent review automatically, and its cost price is already built into the translation price.

There is also a term “review,” which is often used in the same sense as “proofreading” above. Another meaning is a (quick) evaluation of translation by the client. Because of this ambiguity, it requires caution, and we always confirm the scope of checking with the client in such cases.

Monolingual Proofreading

The clients do order proofreading proper though, mainly for the typeset PDF files before printing them of for the web-sites before making them available on the Internet. We call this service “monolingual proofreading.” It involves checking the monolingual text for spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors, as well as formatting issues.

More Information

“Proofreading” in Wikipedia
Translation Error Risk and Independent Review

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