McElroy’s In-Country Review Process

By Susan Andrus,
marketing manager

http://www.mcelroytranslation.com

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It has often been noted that a key characteristic of language translation is its handcrafted nature. While machine translation has its place, depending upon the quality of the desired deliverable, human judgment and terminology preferences are translation issues we consider carefully in our industry.

We also regard our relationship with our clients as a partnership and suggest that a dialogue on terminology preferences serves both parties. It should come as no surprise that a one-to-one correspondence between two languages does not always exist - just as synonyms exist in the English language, they can also be found in target translated languages.

Within industries, companies, even divisions, terminology preferences abound. Taking an example from the project management realm, the business of deconstructing a project at its completion can be referred to as a postmortem, a project wrap, a post-project review, etc.

We strongly recommend in-country reviews on the client side, when schedules and resources allow it. Although referred to as “in-country,” these are often performed by a colleague who speaks the target language and is familiar with the terminology choices, often regarding proprietary products and processes, in use in that language within the company. Reviewing such preferences allows us to incorporate them into our translation memory database, so that continuous upgrades in customizing output can be achieved.

Another helpful technique to ensure the vendor uses the client’s terminology consistently is the development of a pre-project glossary - a list of terms that are selected either by the client or the vendor, and then translated and reviewed by client-side resources. This process is often less daunting than a full in-country review, but can yield significant results in customization. Ideally, both a glossary and final review can be undertaken; in either case, the gains in both productivity and customer satisfaction accrue over time, meaning that such reviews take progressively less time to complete.

McElroy Translation’s In-Country Review Policy

McElroy Translation will coordinate one in-country review per translation provided that the In-Country Review Guidelines are followed.

• McElroy Translation should be informed at the time the initial translation is requested that an in-country review will be performed.
• In-country review comments must be sent to McElroy Translation within 3 months of the translation delivery date.
• McElroy Translation will review the in-country reviewer’s comments and report back to the client so the client can make a determination on how to proceed.
• Charges to implement in-country review changes will be determined on a case-by-case basis.
• McElroy Translation will determine if in-country review changes constitute corrections to errors.
• When McElroy Translation agrees to implement a client’s in-country review changes, the client takes responsibility for the quality of the resulting translation.

In-Country Review Guidelines

The following guidelines must be adhered to:

• The in-country reviewer must review the translation against the original English document. The reviewer should not make changes that alter the meaning of the translation when compared with the original English document.
• If more than one in-country reviewer is used, all the reviewers’ comments must be consolidated into one document before being sent to McElroy Translation.
• Reviewer comments must be specific and must clearly indicate what the reviewer wants added, deleted, or changed as well as the specific alternative wording the reviewer is suggesting.
• Reviewer comments must be made in the appropriate file format, as shown in the table below, or McElroy Translation will charge the client to create the necessary files for processing the corrections:

To learn more about how to optimize your in-country review experience, check out our webinar, Tips for optimizing your in-country review experience.

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