A year with Nature


Anne Murray (Spain)

As a freelance medical translator and author’s editor with no medical or scientific background, much of my work involves research and the creation of specialised corpora in different fields. This strategy provides many answers and—together with what I have learnt from mentors, peers and continuing professional development—it gives me the confidence to tackle many of the challenges I encounter when working with sometimes highly specialised and poorly written medical articles. With time, I have learnt what a research article should look and sound like, but I often wonder whether the tone and range of expression I bring to translated and edited texts adequately reflects that of authors in the field. Last year, taking advantage of a special offer from the Nature Group, I subscribed to 2 print journals, Nature (52 issues) and Nature Medicine (12 issues), as an experiment to see what I could learn—and what I could use to help my clients—from simply reading for 'pleasure'. The results have been better than I expected. In this presentation, I will report back on the value of the experience and discuss the benefits for other language professionals.

Anne Murray is a freelance medical translator and author’s editor based in a small wine village in Tarragona, Spain. She has a degree in translation and has completed the foundation certificate in medical writing offered by the European Medical Writers Association. She has been a member of MET since it was founded and currently serves as its Vice-Chair. Anne also runs a workshop for MET on Getting Started in Medical Translation.