Assuring consistent quality with a diverse team

As some of you will know, TextTrans only works with experienced translators. We do so because quality is one of our strongest pillars, and we know our clients rely on us heavily. However, even though we select brilliant translators, we need to make sure they all work in harmony, with consistent procedures. This can be a challenge, particularly as we grow and onboard new translators to our team. That said, we are constantly in touch with our entire translation team and always on the look for new ways to drive consistency among our translators. In 2020, our in-house language team created a few internal documents providing instructions on how to do certain tasks, such as translation, review, LSO, and rebuttal.

These manuals were launched late 2020  and we are now confident that our translators are familiarized with their content. So, in 2021 we are making these documents a standard practice. That is, all the linguists we work with, must study and familiarize themselves with our guidelines and preferences, and we will monitor how closely they adhere to the information we have shared with them. We believe this will help us to maintain a high level of quality, and also improve the experience for clients, reviewers and PMs etc.

So what did we share with the team? Well here is a brief summary!

Guide to translation — Contains instructions on how to make the most use of glossaries, how to ensure consistency on different levels (e.g. capitalization, punctuation), and how to deal with tags and placeholders. It also covers segmentation issues to be alert to and some specificities in subtitle translation. Finally, it provides a list of useful shortcuts that can make their daily work faster and more comfortable.

Guide to review — Covers time management, common translation errors and how to deal with new, fuzzy and 100% matches. It also has instructions on how to provide constructive feedback so the collaboration between translator and reviewer is smooth and fruitful.

Guide to LSO — Focuses on how to properly mark PDF files and how to comply with the scope, since time allocated for LSO varies greatly.

Guide to rebuttal — Provides instructions on when to agree or disagree with corrections and best practices to apply in comments, such as using solid arguments and keeping a collaborative tone with the client’s reviewer.

We hope our clients benefit from these new guides, but we also hope they make everyone’s work smoother, since it is easier and more enjoyable to work when we know what is expected of us and when communication is open and polite.

These documents were so welcomed by the translators that in 2021 we will continue the trend and create some more guides, along with some training to make sure everything is well understood!

We would love to hear your thoughts about the best way to achieve consistent quality from a diverse group of linguists. Do you have any other suggestions or opinions? Please let us know!