MET workshops
Translation editing for the humanities – music and movements
Authors’ editors and translators often have to comply with journal or publisher style requirements. Many of these “guidelines” share similarities in terms of content – covering topics such as referencing conventions, inclusive language or aspects of writing style – but prioritize different elements. Some lay down rules in painstaking detail, while others pay the same issues only cursory attention. This workshop will focus on identifying how various in-house style requirements are applied to English language translation output. It has been developed on the back of a successful interactive editing session at METM23.
Facilitator: Sarah Bawa Mason
Purpose: To examine some of the challenges in translator and author editing for Deuss Music and UNICEF, using instructions to authors, style guides and great diplomacy.
Description: Participants will be provided with a full background context for the editing of translations in two different situations: the ES>EN translation of a book on Baroque music for Deuss Music and the editing of ES>EN translations of documents for UNICEF Latin America. Working on excerpts from the draft English language translations for each genre, participants will conduct a critical text analysis in small groups, then examine and apply the author instructions, style guides and other key resources used to shape the final edit. In the next stage, they will look at the final published versions to evaluate how closely the guidelines were followed. Finally, participants will discuss the key issues and parameters involved in the editing and how best to provide authoritative but respectful feedback to other members of the production process.
Participant profile: Editors, translators and authors’ editors. Anyone who has had to work to instructions provided by publishers. The workshop will concentrate on English editing but is based on a translation from Spanish (and some pre-Columbian languages in the case of the book on music). Knowledge of Spanish is not necessary.
Outcome: Participants will have learnt how to work confidently and comfortably with instructions to authors and style guides, as well as with other members of the translation and editing production process.
Preparation: Participants should bring their laptops to the workshop. Those who have worked with author instructions for online publications, publishing houses or organizations might like to prepare an outline of their main observations on the range of issues they are regularly asked to attend to in their editing and how strictly instructions are applied. Participants who are not familiar with style guides might like to look at the examples below for an idea of the issues that may be involved:
The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition (2010), University of Chicago Press
UNICEF Style Book (2018)
About the facilitator: Sarah Bawa Mason is a Senior Lecturer in Translation Studies at the University of Portsmouth. She also has a consultancy role as Commercial Collaborations Lead for the Association of Translation Companies in the UK. She has worked as a freelance translator and editor of education, NGO and related documents since 1992, when she trained as a TransEditor in the InterPress Service in Montevideo, Uruguay. She is a Fellow of the ITI in the UK.
