Translating Your Business, Speaking Your Language Personal | Professional | Precise
At Dixon Associates, we are committed to maintaining the highest possible quality in all our projects. To achieve this, we follow a robust quality assurance process and have strict requirements for the qualifications and experience of all our linguists.
So, no matter the scope of your project, you can be sure that it will be completed by professional linguists and go through multiple layers of checks to eliminate errors and ensure that it meets your individual requirements.
Quality Management Procedures
At Dixon Associates, we follow the same rigorous quality management processes as our partner company, Business Language Services, which holds ISO9001 quality management certification. We are working towards becoming certified to this standard in our own right. This involves strict adherence to quality checking procedures in every project we undertake and a robust policy for recording and responding to any complaints or issues that arise during or after a project. By following these procedures, we are able to continuously improve our services and ensure that any mistakes are never repeated.
Find our more about Business Language Services’ ISO9001 certification
3-Stage Checking Process For Translation Projects
As per industry standards, our translation projects follow a process known as TEP – translation, editing and proofreading. This ensures that any errors are identified and corrected early, and that the translation is thoroughly checked for accuracy and fluency by at least two native speakers of the target language.
The TEP Process in Detail:
1) Linguists’ Briefing
Once we have selected two linguists for your project – one translator and one editor/reviser.
We brief them on your needs and share any relevant instructions and information, such as style guides, glossaries and reference materials.
2) Client Consultation
We discuss your project with you and identify your specific requirements.
This allows us to select appropriate linguists who are experienced working with your sector and text type.
3) Translation
The translator performs the initial translation, adhering to any instructions and guidance you have provided.
Once they have completed the translation, they always do a thorough spelling, grammar and fluency check before delivery.
4) Editing
A second equally qualified and experienced linguist revises the translation, checking it word-by-word against the source text, assessing its technical accuracy, stylistic appropriateness and linguistic fluency.
They make any necessary corrections and improvements to the translation to ensure that it is of the best possible quality.
5) Proofreading
As a final quality assurance step, our in-house project manager does a final monolingual check of the translation, checking for any overarching errors or inconsistencies. In multilingual projects, they will also check that the different languages are consistent with each other, for example with measurement conversions. The proofreader will also make any necessary formatting tweaks in the final files to ensure that they look their best.
6) Delivery
All the translated files are gathered together and delivered to you in one neat, convenient package, ready for you to use.
If requested, we also preform any post-translation services, such as certification, desktop publishing, etc.
Specialist, Qualified Linguists
We place great importance on our linguists’ qualifications, skills and experience, and always handpick linguists for each individual project who are experienced working with your industry. As a minimum, all our translators and interpreters have one of the three following levels of qualification:
a) A master’s degree (or equivalent) in translation, interpreting, languages, linguistics or a related field
b) An undergraduate degree (or equivalent) in translation, interpreting, languages, linguistics or a related field, plus three years’ experience as a professional linguist
c) Five years’ experience as a professional linguist
For specialist industries such as law, engineering, healthcare, etc., we always use our most experienced linguists who have been translating or interpreting for your sector for many years, as these industries require particular skills and knowledge that not all linguists will have.
To find out more about how we can help you, speak to one of the team today by phone on +44 (0)1952 288 230 or by email to info@dixon-associates.co.uk
