Article type
Year
Abstract
Reviewing the translations of abstracts done by volunteers: is it worth the effort? Experience from the Brazilian Cochrane Center:
Background: Since 2013, volunteers from the Brazilian Cochrane Center (BCC) have translated English Cochrane Abstracts into Portuguese; these are uploaded to the Cochrane Library only after being reviewed by a language and a content expert. English belongs to the Germanic family of languages, while Portuguese is part of the Italic language family, therefore, the construction of sentences is different, as well as the use of double negatives, the choice for verbal tenses and the order of words. These differences make translating Cochrane Abstracts a challenging task. To help translators, we created and distributed a short guide on the most common mistakes in translating these abstracts to Portuguese.
Objectives: To assess the most frequent Portuguese language errors found in abstracts translated by BCC volunteers.
Methods: We analyzed the last 12 abstracts translated by volunteer physicians, psychologists, physical therapists and a dietitian. A Portuguese language expert experienced in reviewing medical texts and a physician reviewed all abstracts for language and content accuracy. Language errors and corrections were classified by type and frequency.
Results: Most corrections (mean 15.75/translation) concerned style and were made to improve text readability. However, all 12 texts also had grammatical (12.37/translation) as well as misspelling errors or 'typos' (11.85/translation; Table 1).
Conclusions: Although the volunteer translators are highly motivated and qualified health professionals, their translations can be considerably improved by a professional language review. Since translated Cochrane Abstracts are read by thousands of professionals and consumers worldwide, it is important to use a review process to ensure not only that their content is accurate, but also that the text is grammatically correct, and is easy to read and understand for all users. This language review is important and should be encouraged in other languages to ensure the quality of translations produced by Cochrane.
Background: Since 2013, volunteers from the Brazilian Cochrane Center (BCC) have translated English Cochrane Abstracts into Portuguese; these are uploaded to the Cochrane Library only after being reviewed by a language and a content expert. English belongs to the Germanic family of languages, while Portuguese is part of the Italic language family, therefore, the construction of sentences is different, as well as the use of double negatives, the choice for verbal tenses and the order of words. These differences make translating Cochrane Abstracts a challenging task. To help translators, we created and distributed a short guide on the most common mistakes in translating these abstracts to Portuguese.
Objectives: To assess the most frequent Portuguese language errors found in abstracts translated by BCC volunteers.
Methods: We analyzed the last 12 abstracts translated by volunteer physicians, psychologists, physical therapists and a dietitian. A Portuguese language expert experienced in reviewing medical texts and a physician reviewed all abstracts for language and content accuracy. Language errors and corrections were classified by type and frequency.
Results: Most corrections (mean 15.75/translation) concerned style and were made to improve text readability. However, all 12 texts also had grammatical (12.37/translation) as well as misspelling errors or 'typos' (11.85/translation; Table 1).
Conclusions: Although the volunteer translators are highly motivated and qualified health professionals, their translations can be considerably improved by a professional language review. Since translated Cochrane Abstracts are read by thousands of professionals and consumers worldwide, it is important to use a review process to ensure not only that their content is accurate, but also that the text is grammatically correct, and is easy to read and understand for all users. This language review is important and should be encouraged in other languages to ensure the quality of translations produced by Cochrane.