Re: Fw: abstracts - and what about references?

July 7, 2000

Hi all,

I agree with Silvina's suggestions. The English abstract is often better

written than the original paper (probably by an English-speaking fellow

scientist) and can be very helpful in finding the proper terminology. I

usually don't translate the original abstract/summary if an English version

is already provided - unless there are really serious problems with it.

But what about translating the titles of non-English references in a

scientific paper? Being a scientist myself, I think it is important to

understand what the references are about. In the past, I usually translated

the titles, too, particularly when they contained essential information

(and/or terminology). But some clients did'nt like that and complained

about having to pay for the translation (which IMHO is ridiculous if there

were only about 10 references (or about 100 words) in a > 5000 word

article).

I think, it is the client's responsibility to make it clear from the very

beginning if there are any passages they don't want to be translated. What

do you think?

Ursula

_________________________________________

Ursula Vielkind, Ph.D.

German/English Translation in Biological Sciences

Dundas, Ontario L9H 3L8, Canada

Tel: +1 Fax: +1

e-mail: uvielk@...

http://hpcaonline.com/urvi.html

________________________________________

Dear Alla,

I'm taking you are talking about translating articles

into English which already have the summary in English

(very common in non-English scientific journals). Now,

does the article has also the summary in the source

language?

If the English summary is well written, I'd leave as

it is, you also may even have the advantage of having

some help for your translation regarding some specific

terminology). If the English summary is as bad as you

say sometimes is, I may want to do a proper

translation from the source language. In any case, I

would talk it over with the client, letting him/her

decide what to do. But, if you don't need to translate

the summary, make sure to have this point very clear

with the client before hand.

Hope I haven't add more confusion to your dilemma.

Silvina

July 7, 2000

>>But what about translating the titles of non-English references in a

scientific paper? Being a scientist myself, I think it is important to

understand what the references are about. In the past, I usually

translated

the titles, too, particularly when they contained essential information

(and/or terminology). <<

I think references in a scientific article should _definitely_ not be

translated. You want to be able to look them up and you need the

original title for that.

Hartelijke groeten * Bart *

July 7, 2000

Hi Bart:

but you HAVE the original titles already in the original paper - and if you

have the translated title, then you can decide WHICH ONE is worth looking

up :-))

Ursula

----------------

I think references in a scientific article should _definitely_ not be

translated. You want to be able to look them up and you need the

original title for that.

Hartelijke groeten * Bart *

July 7, 2000

OK, first of all I am talking about really bad abstracts, written by someone

who learned English from a textbook. I could quote some here - you would

die! I am totally embarrassed to include them in my work. I do hesitate to

touch them, though, because there is no original. I did not know if there

was a standard procedures for such things. These abstracts are no help as

far as terminology goes, since these people are not familiar with the right

terminology anyway.

As far as translating the titles of the articles, I always do. Since the