You can’t ask a translator to be an editor, especially of his own translation work. So to get more readable copy, you should resort.

After translation is done, edits are always possible.

If you want to improve the linguistic aspects of your copy;

If you copy or text needs changes in grammar or some sentence restructuring of ideas and sentences;

If you want to render your copy more clarified or elegant;

So you are looking for an editor. Send me your copy or text and I will make sure it will be healthier. One of the jobs of editor is to proofread.

So you hear this word a lot. Right. Proofreading is what is known to be the last step before deliver a text or copy to a client.

Proofreaders read proofs before printing or publishing, and check for errors after all finish their jobs.

Proofreading as Editing in Dubai

Proofreading involves correcting mistakes and punctuations, and typos and may be checking of facts but doesn’t extend to re-paragrpahing.

Some rephrases here are there but not more. Another word that you may come across is revision.

To revise a text or copy is to make sure that the flow of ideas is proper and suitable to the copy, and that your text is cohesive and coherent. In plain language, the flow should be logic.

Moving from one idea to another or from a big idea to a small one should be justified and agreeable by the reader.

Otherwise, your writing or your copy would be accused of thought jumping. You leap from here to there without any reasonable motive.

Have me revise your English Arabic translation and get satisfied with the results. It is said that to edit someone else’s writing you should have better skills in writing.

This is required if you want to make some improvements on others’ writing.

Translation is writing but it is incomplete writing.

The task of translating can’t be complete, unless the translated text receives some treatment of a better writher than a translator.

Editing as post translation 

A competent writer can only give you a translation, and translation needs some touches, sometimes significant, to sound natural and fluent in the target language.

A translator would most likely interested in the transfer of meaning, regardless of the style unless such translator is asked to wear the editor’s hat.

An editor’s hat gives you a worldview of the text that goes beyond the meaning and exceeds the limitation of accuracy and faithfulness.

This is one of the two significant criteria according to which translators are judged. Editing process borders on the verge of writing, original writing.

Unlike the translator, the editor should find some sense of story in the writing. Without such storyline, there would be no good writing. A translator have a bigger fish to fry. That is to survive blame.

That is the best you can get from a translator.

Ideas and concepts to be materialized in the text should pass through editor’s mind.

However, editors are not authors, they are not original writers. Writers research, organize and create texts.

Editors like copyeditors don’t do these activities.

They are not required to do this. No organization, and no creation.

Editors rearrange sentences may be.

They may be writer new sentences, but not whole paragraphs.

Editors in Dubai and elsewhere read the text line by line and check for any necessary fixes like typos, grammatical mistakes, inconsistencies.

Between translation and editing for Dubai businesses 

Translation and editing are different. Each needs different skills.

Some do both, but they shouldn’t be asked to do both at the same time, for the same copy.

A translator can’t be asked to be a writer in the target text. Should he be, why would he translate and stay in the shadow of others?

Any copy that went through translation process can be improved, regardless of the translator’s competency.

If it is translation, it can be enhanced and tweaked.

This might be done in terms of structure, organization of ideas and concepts or otherwise.

Translators and editors have different focus.

In translating, focus should be divided between two worlds, two languages and two cultures represented in a copy.

In editing, focus would lean more to the target world, target language, and target culture.

If a copy is to be look more convincing, it has to be edited. Translation is awkward and editing removes such awkwardness.

Of course, not all translations are required to rid of their awkwardness.

Editors are more detail-oriented.

They take into consideration house style, and other requirements that you may consider necessary.

Have your copy edited to its finest possible existence.