| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Poll: When was the last time you made adjustments to your quality assurance process? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "When was the last time you made adjustments to your quality assurance process?".
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I have found some functions in my CAT tool which enable me to avoid some common mistakes.
| | | | Ricki Farn
Germany
Local time: 16:06
English to German
... someone else found some functions in my CAT tool which enable me to avoid some common mistakes, and I shamelessly appropriated their settings file. (No, it wasn't Gianluca  )
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Do any of us freelance translators have a clearly defined 'quality assurance process' per se? I think our quality checks or efforts to ensure quality before delivery are intrinsically embedded like DNA in the modus operandi of how we tackle a translation and are not a discrete, separate 'process.'
This is the kind of question a company with an ISO certification or company aiming at acquiring such a certification would be asked by a certifying body. Not freelance transl... See more Do any of us freelance translators have a clearly defined 'quality assurance process' per se? I think our quality checks or efforts to ensure quality before delivery are intrinsically embedded like DNA in the modus operandi of how we tackle a translation and are not a discrete, separate 'process.'
This is the kind of question a company with an ISO certification or company aiming at acquiring such a certification would be asked by a certifying body. Not freelance translators. IMHO
Yet another effing dopey question from Anonymous.
Small edit. No 'Verify' function like you get in a CAT tool 
[Edited at 2017-02-06 08:14 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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neilmac
Spain
Local time: 16:06
Spanish to English
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Julian Holmes wrote:
Do any of us freelance translators have a clearly defined 'quality assurance process' per se? I think our quality checks or efforts to ensure quality before delivery are intrinsically embedded like DNA in the modus operandi of how we tackle a translation and are not a discrete, separate 'process.'
This is the kind of question a company with an ISO certification or company aiming at acquiring such a certification would by asked by a certifying body. Not freelance translators. IMHO
Yet another effing dopey question from Anonymous.
Well said. And here I thought it was just me....
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My recent investment was a Verifika tool that helps greatly with large projects processed in CAT-tools.
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Julian Holmes wrote:
Do any of us freelance translators have a clearly defined 'quality assurance process' per se? I think our quality checks or efforts to ensure quality before delivery are intrinsically embedded like DNA in the modus operandi of how we tackle a translation and are not a discrete, separate 'process.'
This is the kind of question a company with an ISO certification or company aiming at acquiring such a certification would by asked by a certifying body. Not freelance translators. IMHO
Yet another effing dopey question from Anonymous.
I keep improving ALL my processes all the time.
After 44 years on the translation road, I still take every job as a chance to learn and improve.
Otherwise I could have amassed a humongous TM, and use a CAT tool to machine-translate 99% of the work assigned to me.
Indeed, some translation agencies require a detailed description of an applicant's "quality assurance process" as if all our jobs were merely "text in&out" operations, equated to a cartoon-like scene of pigs walking into a machine on one side, and sausages coming out on the other.
ISO certification is often used by some agencies as a lame excuse to request the most absurd kinds of information & documents that the same agencies strictly forbid via NDA to ever disclose about them.
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A few months ago I discovered the text-to-speech feature in Word. I listen to my translation being read out loud, so I can get rid of strange sentence constructions.
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| I don't remember | Feb 5, 2017 |
I don’t remember when I made changes to my “quality assurance process” but it’s not written in stone and I will improve it, if need be. First of all, I’m one of those translators that are on their way to extinction, also known in the trade as dinosaurs, because I don’t use CAT tools. In general, the type of work I do is neither very technical nor repetitive. All my translations go through a number of proofreading and editing stages. The first one happens immediately after completing ... See more I don’t remember when I made changes to my “quality assurance process” but it’s not written in stone and I will improve it, if need be. First of all, I’m one of those translators that are on their way to extinction, also known in the trade as dinosaurs, because I don’t use CAT tools. In general, the type of work I do is neither very technical nor repetitive. All my translations go through a number of proofreading and editing stages. The first one happens immediately after completing the first draft and I’ll be comparing the source and the target against each other and looking for missing words or figures (checking all figures and dates in the text and in tables), typos, punctuation errors and spelling. Then, I incorporate the corrections and changes. During the second one, I just look at style considerations, formatting inconsistencies, gaps between words, etc. Then again, I incorporate the corrections and changes. The third one, generally done the next day, consists of reading aloud the whole text. Stage one and two are sometimes done by a trusted colleague… ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Quality assurance structure | Feb 5, 2017 |
There are official ways to get recognition for the quality of our overall work and those recognize that we're not bellow the level of decent professional. Then, there are ways to ensure top quality for a specific product we're delivering, i. e. having your translation reviewed by an expert in the field who's not necessarily bilingual too. And then again, there's the issue of competence and relevance where we have our quality proven through delegating the duty to a colleague whose work w... See more There are official ways to get recognition for the quality of our overall work and those recognize that we're not bellow the level of decent professional. Then, there are ways to ensure top quality for a specific product we're delivering, i. e. having your translation reviewed by an expert in the field who's not necessarily bilingual too. And then again, there's the issue of competence and relevance where we have our quality proven through delegating the duty to a colleague whose work we're familiar with and for whom we can guarantee they'd provide the top quality "source of satisfaction" for a client. In a word, not just that keeping our translating life vital is crucial for maintaining competent quality, but also the diversity of social capital and readiness to reserve time for own knowledge and skills upgrade is of utmost importance. ▲ Collapse
| | | | EvaVer (X) 
Local time: 16:06
Czech to French
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I started to use CAT more often, although I hate it. As I am getting older, I have been making stupid mistakes in numbers and names, and CAT can prevent that.
| | | | Julieta Moss
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:06
Spanish to English
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| Another Cat tool rant | Feb 5, 2017 |
During the start of the year I was bored with little work to do so I started investigating my CAT tool further.
I found that it features a lot of QA options and decided to start using them.
However, it did not last long because it caused me more hassle than it helped.
It's curious though that there are so many times when you will either have the target translated identically as the source, the numbers and dates will be different (according to Trados, anyway) ... See more During the start of the year I was bored with little work to do so I started investigating my CAT tool further.
I found that it features a lot of QA options and decided to start using them.
However, it did not last long because it caused me more hassle than it helped.
It's curious though that there are so many times when you will either have the target translated identically as the source, the numbers and dates will be different (according to Trados, anyway) because you replaced "." with "," and added St, nd and th behind the number, and your punctuation is different because the source is so poor quality! ▲ Collapse
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Muriel Vasconcellos (X)
United States
Local time: 07:06
Spanish to English
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| I don't remember | Feb 5, 2017 |
Basically, I follow the same protocol as Teresa. I rarely get repetitive texts. I installed PerfectIt a couple of years ago and I like that it catches little inconsistencies.
Besides a spellcheck and two proofreadings--one for sense/meaning and one for typos--I do a run-though to check the beginnings and ends of paragraphs (estimating their size to make sure that nothing was skipped) and make sure that the numbers and dates match.
Teresa Borges wrote:
I don’t remember when I made changes to my “quality assurance process” but it’s not written in stone and I will improve it, if need be. First of all, I’m one of those translators that are on their way to extinction, also known in the trade as dinosaurs, because I don’t use CAT tools. In general, the type of work I do is neither very technical nor repetitive. All my translations go through a number of proofreading and editing stages. The first one happens immediately after completing the first draft and I’ll be comparing the source and the target against each other and looking for missing words or figures (checking all figures and dates in the text and in tables), typos, punctuation errors and spelling. Then, I incorporate the corrections and changes. During the second one, I just look at style considerations, formatting inconsistencies, gaps between words, etc. Then again, I incorporate the corrections and changes. The third one, generally done the next day, consists of reading aloud the whole text. Stage one and two are sometimes done by a trusted colleague…
| | | | | not sure what is meant | Feb 6, 2017 |
Everyone responding so far seems to be talking about CAT tools, or some automatic process (?). My quality assurance process is roughly as follows:
- examine any text in full before accepting it, to make sure I can handle it
- ask any necessary questions ahead of time if possible, and during if needed
- do necessary research as required
- a two-step checking of my work, once for translation accuracy, and once for the quality of the target language, repeating if it seems n... See more Everyone responding so far seems to be talking about CAT tools, or some automatic process (?). My quality assurance process is roughly as follows:
- examine any text in full before accepting it, to make sure I can handle it
- ask any necessary questions ahead of time if possible, and during if needed
- do necessary research as required
- a two-step checking of my work, once for translation accuracy, and once for the quality of the target language, repeating if it seems necessary
- always encourage end clients to look over the translation; suggest to agencies that they/their clients should look over the translation
- when it seems prudent, hire someone to proofread/revise
I honestly don't know how I would change this process, i.e. what kinds of adjustments I would make to it. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Jo Macdonald
Spain
Local time: 16:06
Member (2005)
Italian to English
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I recently added Perfectit to the checks I run to polish off the job.
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