The Tao of the Guerrilla Translator

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Overview

Welcome to the Tao of the Guerrilla Translator! The TotGT is a step-by-step itinerary describing the full journey of a translation project. The Tao is primarily centered on our pro-bono translation work and for material destined to be published in our web-magazine. On the other hand, much of the procedure described herein can be applied to the paid translation work we take on as an agency.

How to use this guide

Each of the different sections below thoroughly detail the different steps a “ project” takes, from reading an article and considering it for translation/curation, through translation and copyediting, to formatting, publishing and promoting it. Of courses we'll explore our workflow tools, but we'll also talk about the protocols we employ to optimize the tools.

Every section in this page contains a brief overview of each step in the process, as well as links to more thorough wiki entries describing the concrete aspects of each section. All sections will be accompanied by short screen-cast videos (once completed) explaining these processes. Keep in mind that the figure of the “Guerrilla Translator” described herein will be akin to the Hero with a Thousand Faces. We will show the Guerrilla Translator taking on different roles (curator, translator, copy editor, etc.) although in reality, some of these processes will be carried out by different persons within a project.

Finally, given the variety of material we have, this is not a one-size-fits-all guide. There will be exceptions, projects with different needs, and changes made to the procedures over time. The intention here isn’t to present an inviolable template, but an expedient way to make yourself familiar with our method. Once you feel comfortable with what we have outlined, you will likely expand on it and adapt it to both your own needs as a Guerrilla Translator as well as to the needs of each project. For this itinerary we have, as a working example, chosen a Standard Translation, target Spanish and with no video content.

Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin….

Main steps in the Tao of the Guerrilla Translator

Before getting down to the nitty-gritty, we’d like to highlight four distinct areas in the process.

1: Content curation, choosing the team – Wherein the Guerrilla Translator reads something outstanding, wants to share it with the group, and together consider whether and how to organize the material as a project.

2: Pre-production, translation and copy editing process – Wherein the Guerrilla Translator inputs the material into our workflow system. Authors are contacted for permission and the material is translated and copyedited. This is the stage where additional tasks related to the project get identified, the necessary materials collected, and everything poised and placed for eventual action (images, extracts, additional needs, etc.)

3: Formatting, proofreading and publishing – Wherein the Guerrilla Translator takes the translated and copy edited text and formats it for publication in our web-magazine. Then, before releasing it to the world, she proofreads it one (hopefully) last time.

4. Social Media, post-production and re-publishing Wherein the Guerrilla Translator promotes the hell out of the great task she has accomplished, ties up any loose ends in this tale, and gives the project new life (and maybe lucrative sequels) by working to have it republished in different specific outlets.

Content curation, assignment of operatives

  • Wherein the Guerrilla Translator reads something outstanding, wants to share it with the group, and together consider whether and how to organize the material as a project.

Selecting material

This is how every Guerrilla Translation begins. As we’ve often expressed, more than translators, we’re content curators sharing across languages. This makes content selection a vital part of the process, and something we take very seriously.

This is why we strive to select really high quality, powerful articles with no immediate "expiry date". Another factor is saturation, we really favour quality over quantity. Many blogs and webmagazines have a mistaken impression of the number of eyeball hours their audience is going to award them. So, in brief, we don't put out a huge amount of stuff, but what we choose to translate, has to be both high quality and concordant with our Founding Principles.

We also ask all new arrivals to translate 5000 words (or copy edit 10000) before suggesting material to be translated pro-bono.(Read the reasons why here). If you just starting out and what to choose from pre-selected material, please check out our reader's blog. (Which we'll talk about in the next section)

Sharing it on the Reading blog

Once you've selected some suitable material for pro-bono translation, it's time to present it to the rest of the collective in our Reading blog: "The Guerrilla Translators". The reading blog is place for us to share high quality curated material. We encourage everyone to read and comment on what's posted there, even if you choose not to take up any of the translations.

We choose to make the reading blog a Wordpress blog for two reasons:

  • It allows people to "vote" on articles (without the need to make a Loomio thread) and add comments.
  • It's an excellent introduction to posting in Wordpress (the process is simpler than in GT's web-magazine).

Material posted on the blog can currently fall under four categories: 

  1) English

  2) Español
  • These correspond with source-language and are self explanatory. Then there we have:
  3) NEW ARTICLES

  4) Project Underway.

So, let's say you've chosen an article in English that you wish to translate to Spanish, you've ensured that it meets the curation guidelines and you're about to post it in the blog. The actual "technical procedure is detailed" here. The article will be categorised under their source language and as "NEW ARTICLES"

Approval and team assignment

Now the curated article has been published and other Guerrilla Translators have read it. Whether articles are translated copyedited and published in our blog is decided by lazy majority. Every article in the Reading Blog has a poll with the same categories found in Loomio (Yes, No, Undecided, Block). If no one has has blocked the proposal and if there hasn't been a majority of "noes" in the five days following the posting of the article, it is then approved for translation/copy-editing and publication.

If anyone blocks the article, they will be expected to back up their reasons for doing so (referring to the content curation protocols). People voting "yes" and "no" are not committing to translate the article, just whether the article should get "processed" or not.

After reading and voting on the articles, Guerrilla Translators can then auto assign or suggest who'll take care of the translation, copyediting and proofreading, and formatting for the project. We'll go into each of those roles below. Translators are free to start the project, but we encourage you to find an copyeditor and settling on a timeframe before going full-steam ahead.

Last thing! Before you head on over to Trello, go into the post and change the category of the article from "NEW ARTICLES" to "Project Underway".

Links for this section

Pre-production, translation and copy editing process

  • Wherein the Guerrilla Translator inputs the material into our workflow system. Authors are contacted for permission and the material is translated and copyedited. This is the stage where additional tasks related to the project get identified, the necessary materials collected, and everything poised and placed for eventual action (images, extracts, additional needs, etc.)

Creation of a project Trello card

Once the material has been selected it is carried over into our workflow tool Trello. You can think of Trello as a big board with little cards. Each card can be a “task” or a “project”. We call translations “projects”. What we’re going to do is to create the project in Trello and then we’ll see its progress as it make its way through the board, left to right. Next we’ll give a brief overview of the procedure used in the translation boards, but you can get a more detailed look in the “How to” wiki entries we’ll link to below. : First of all, we’ll log on to the target language translation board we’ll be using. In this case the GT: Translation ES board as our example is a pro-bono translation, target Spanish.

The board has a series of columns, each of these describes a possible stage in the process of getting a translation published in our webmagazine.

To start, go to the leftmost column and look for a card clearly marked as “TEMPLATE”. This is a preformatted card you can copy to make your project card. Within the card look for the “copy” button in the right hand column. When you hit “copy”, you’ll see a menu where you can choose where to copy the template card to. You can pretty much copy anything anywhere in Trello but, for now, we just wanna make a copy of the template card in the second column “Next up” and we'll tell it to put it in the 1st position of that column.

Once copied get out of the template card by clicking on the “X” in the upper right corner (or hitting the ESC key). Bingo! If everything's gone right you should have a clone of the Template card in the "Next Up" Column. Now we're gonna mess with it to turn the Template-clone into the project card for our example translation.

As you will see, the sections for the template card are pretty self-explanatory but, if you need a step by step breakdown read this article: How to fill in a Translation Template card.

The first thing you have to so is to copy the card (look for the "copy" button on the right hand column) into another column. The copy button leads you to a menu that lets you determine where your copy of card "lands", you can even copy it into a different board! That will come in handy later, after we've formatted the translation but for now, just copy the project to the "Next Up" column. Here's some info from Trello on how to copy cards.

It's very important that you don't modify the template card!! You want to go in copy it, and leave it as it is for the next person.

So, with that cleared, now you want to exit the Template card and go to your copy, in the "Next Up" column.

The first thing you want to do is change the name of the card. The conviction is to use the title of the original article (although you can always shorten it if it's overlong).

Now go inside the card and fill all the fields you can at this stage. Stuff like the hyperlink for Guerrilla Translation's site will be inserted once you've generated the post. Same thing with the translated wordcount.

As you fill the "Translator/Copyeditor/Admin" fields, add these persons (and yourself!) to the card by hitting the "members" button at the top right. Here's [http://help.trello.com/customer/portal/articles/1024320 more info on adding members to cards.

Next up you need to add labels to card. This is done through the "labels" button, and here's more info from Trello on adding labels in cards.

For labelling stuff in the translation boards you need to ask yourself the following questions:

  • Do we have the authors approval for going ahead with the translation? If "yes" add the GREEN (GREENLIT) label, if it's "no" add the BLUE (APPROACH AUTHORS-PUBLISHERS) label
  • Is it a text translation? (Most of the stuff featured in the web-magazine has some translated text, but not always If "yes", add the YELLOW (TEXT) label
  • Does the project involve Video or Audio work? (This can include subtitling, transcription, etc) if "yes" add the ORANGE (VIDEO-AUDIO) label.
  • Will this project be published as a Featured or Standard translation. First of all read the difference between the two in this link. (If you're not sure, ask!). If it's going to be a "Featured post", label it PURPLE (FEATURED), if it's Standard Translation, label it RED (STANDARD). Easy!

We will cover more Trello features during the translation process but, for now, you can start messing with the "Due Date" feature. If you hit the button of the same name you'll get a familiar looking calendar. Now that you're in the "Next up" column, you may want to determine a date for, say, having contacted the author or any preparatory work that the translation may need. It can also mean the date where you will start the translation (and, at that stage, you'll move your project-card to the next column... you'll see!). Here's more info from Trello on the calendar feature.

Now, if you still haven't contacted the author for permission... what are you waiting for!

Contacting Authors

Relax! You don't have to write authors yourself and appear out of nowhere. We'll eventually expect you to take care of this part of the process but, if this is your first Guerrilla Translation, a member will take care of contacting authors. We have an excellent database and have a very high success rate in contacting authors, getting permission to translate and, often, forging great relationships.

Sometimes it's very easy, sometimes it takes a lot more work but we usually get it done. This means that the member doing that work will take on the "pre-production" part of "Admin". She will add her name to the "roster" there. You can read more on the roles within a translation in the more detailed article about creating Translation Trello cards.

We've been contacting authors for a while and we know what works and what doesn't when writing an email. You will be copied in all correspondence and introduced to that author as the translator/copyeditor. This initial contact will come in handy if you need to consult anything with the authors during the translation. Now, if you decide to do that, get a second opinion, we don't want to drive authors mad with unnecessary email!

Being copied in this kind of correspondence will give you a feel for how we contact people and motivate you to create the best translation possible. The author cares!

Preparing for the next steps

Ok, so let's imagine that author X is overjoyed at us handling the translation of one of his or her texts. To celebrate this, we'll go back to GT Translation Trello Board and reflect the author's approval. If you're still not familiar with Trello and you're finding it difficult to find the card for the project, you can do a couple of things.

  • Hit the "F" key. A "Filter" Menu will open up. Select your user icon and you'll only see the projects you're involved on. You can also search by label or due date, or any combination of the three.
  • At the top left of the Trello board, just to the right on the button labelled "Boards" you have a search box. Insert the name of the Translation project and it will pop up straight away (even if it's in another board!).

Back at the card? Good. Now press the "Labels" button. De-select the blue label and select the green label. The project is greenlight and ready to schedule!

Due dates, as mentioned before, reflect the date in which the project will move to the next column in Trello or "Stage" In this case, you can determine the date you'll start the translation or move it to either of the "In Process" columns, keep it in "Next Up" column, or move it back to "Backburner" column. Let's explain briefly what all this column overdose is about:

The "Backburner" and "Next Up" columns

The two first columns in the board are:

  • Backburner
  • Next Up

We normally create translation-project cards in the "Next Up" column with the expectation that the translation itself will be started within one of the project being created. (Note: if there's a lot of projects currently under next up, it's because they've been backlogged there from the time when they hardly were any regular Guerrilla Translators).

If you think the project will have to wait, or others should be prioritised first, by all means, move it to the "Backburner" column. You can also do this if you haven't contacted the author. In fact, it's preferable to only use the "Backburner· column before attempting to contact the author. If we've committed to translate something, we shouldn't lose sight of it. It's a deliverable and we should treat it as such.

The exception to that is authors we have a special relationship with, ie. we can just pick up any of their articles and translate it because we don't have to ask for approval anymore. If we haven't announced that we're going to do that specific translation to the author, it's ok to move the project back to "Backburner".

The "In Process" columns

As you'll see, there's two "In Process columns"

  • Long term
  • Short term

You should be clear about the column that where your project belongs before starting the translation process.

By "Long term", we expect that the translation (unless it's a mammoth) will be done between three weeks and three months. Even if you start on the translation right away but plan to take it a few hundred words at a time, if it's going to take a month or longer to deliver to the copyeditor, it should go here. Copyeditors have to plan their time too! The clearer you are with the delivery dates, the easier it will be for them to coordinate with you.

By "Short term" we expect the translation to be done anywhere between a day (if it's a "Standard" shorter translation) or within two weeks (for a "Featured" translation).

Respecting self-assigned due dates

AS SOON AS YOU'VE MOVED THE PROJECT-CARD TO ANY OF THE COLUMNS YOU HAVE TO SET A DUE DATE FOR IT AND KEEP TO IT

Remember: The due date is not the date of publication, it reflects the date in which the next stage of the process should start. Stages are determined by columns in Trello

Here we recommend caution, specially if it's your first time. Put the project in the "Long term" column. If you then happen to produce a top-quality translation on a much shorter time span, great! The copyeditor can then choose to take it up right away or wait a little bit.

Once you've gotten the rhythm of the Tao of the Guerrilla Translator, you'll easily be able to determine what columns to put your project on before the actual translation starts.

By doing it right from the beginning you'll save yourself, the copy-editor and the admin-person for the project a lot of time and pain!

Let's get on with the Translation process then.

Translation guidelines

Translation philosophy

Since you've read the Founding Principles, you know that we take a very personal and hands-on approach to everything: the selection of material, the translation process, and the sharing of completed work (via selected media outlets). One thing that can't be stressed enough is that we do not use CAT (computer-aided translation) tools, and it's crucial that those working with us feel as we do, and work accordingly. We really feel that having a team including a translator and a copyeditor/proofreader for each piece ("two human brains") not only yields far superior results, but enhances the connection with the pieces being translated - which, of course, the translator must feel an affinity for a piece before choosing to do the work. It's kind of like, passion in, passion out. If it moves you to read and you really want to share it, then you're going to want to take that spirit and do the work in a "handmade" style.

We want translation made by humans, crafted with care and attention to detail. We feel that it’s essential to get into the author’s skin to re-create his or her voice in the target laguage. Ask yourself, “How would this author write this exact same article if she spoke the target-language, perfectly, if she was familiar with our cultural context?”. This, in combination with getting every nuance of the author’s message across is what we strive for.

If you’re having trouble getting into the author’s head to express yourself with his or her spirit… go online and watch some videos of the author speaking! This usually helps a lot.

As you may have noticed, while our organizational structure is very decentralised and we use a variety of software tools, when it comes to translation we're totally old school. We translate with love and care.

Where do I translate?

Although we have used online documents at time for translation, we really can't recommend it. Convenient as they are for certain things, we much rather work with track-changes. So whether it's .odt or .doc, we expect you to do your translation in wordprocessor.

Formatting

We format our documents to make it easy to compare the translation to the original, both for you and the copy-editor. For archieve this we alternate one paragraph of the original text, with it's corresponding translated paragraph. Check the example below: 

  Guerra de movimiento y guerra de posiciones



  War of Position and War of Maneuver

Abro ahora un delta extraño antes de volver al cauce central del río que es la pregunta por la fuerza de ese puñado de personas frente a una casa. Me sitúo así en el debate en torno a la idea de revolución que se dio en el marxismo de entreguerras, interesándome especialmente por el planteamiento del marxista italiano Antonio Gramsci. A primera vista es un salto muy extraño, pero se trata de un debate con resonancias bien contemporáneas. El pasado no pasa: es un depósito riquísimo de imágenes y saberes siempre actualizable (resignificable) desde los problemas y las necesidades del presente.

I’m veering offroad for a bit before heading back to the highway, that being the question of how a handful of people have the strength to defend a home. Let´s look at the debate on the meaning of revolution carried out in Marxism between the two World Wars, where we’ll focus on the approach favoured by the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci. At first it may seem like an odd jump, but it concerns a debate that is markedly contemporary. The past doesn't quite “pass”: it’s a rich deposit of images and knowledge, prone to updates and renewed sense-making from the perspective of our present problems and necessities.

...and so on. If you’re translating a particularly long paragraph and need to split it up so you can see both original and translation and at glance, you can split it, but mark the split with a row of capital “X’s” so you can re-assemble the paragraph later.

Whenever you get stuck, or have a doubt or a suggestion, insert a comment. You and the copyeditor are a team dedicated to producing the best translation possible. At the same time, don’t “overload” the document with unnecessary comments, be judgemental in how much you “load up” the document with comments, etc. The copyeditor will be encouraged to “solve” as many of these without establishing a back-and-forth dialogue as possible, so offer her clear choices so they can be sorted expediently.

Additionally, as we're mostly translating for our web-magazine, please translate using headings and subheadings. You can refer to the original text to determine where and how to use these. We tend not to use bolded sentences, even if the original has them, but it's always better to use "Heading 2" in your word-processor for sub sections within the translation and "Heading 3" for intro texts. Get into the habit of working like this. Here's a good image-based tutorial in using Styles in word-processors. Please read it if you haven't worked this way before.

Other considerations

  • If the text has hyperlinks, it’s your job to find equivalent hyperlinks in the target language.
  • If the original text has footnotes, these must also be translated. Please mark them clearly in the body of the text with numbers in and square brackets ('[1], [2] and so on...). Gather all the footnotes together at the end of the document, but do not make footnotes in your word-processor. If you do you'll give a huge headache to the person who's formatting the translation later; don't worry, he or she will make it all look pretty (and hyperlinked) when it goes up on the web. You should also preface this with a Heading 2 title saying "Footnotes"
  • If you run into any linguistic dead-ends that can't be solved within the text, you can add translators' notes. If there's no footnotes in the original, use the same numbering convention as above ([1], '[2] etc,...). However, if the translation features both footnotes and translators notes, the latter will be marked with lower-case letters instead of numbers ('[a], [b] etc,...)
  • If the original has images with captions, these have to be translated too.

Translator’s copy-editing

The fact that you’ll have a copy-editor going through your translation and checking it against the original ‘’does not mean that you should do a lesser job’’. We expect all translators to copy-edit their own translations before sending them off to the copy-editor.

What you shouldn't do is obsess over stuff when you get “stuck” or something sounds weird. Just mark it clearly for the copy-editor so it can be seen with a new pair of eyes.

Before passing it on to the copy-editor, we strongly recommend that you do two rounds of copy-editing:

1. Comparing your translation against the original, to ensure fidelity and as well as formatting considerations and any hyperlinks.

2. Read the translated paragraphs out loud to ensure that everything flows and sounds right.

In this second re-read, try and identify good extracts from the text which we can eventually use for post formatting or social media. We're looking for paragraph length passages that will grab the reader's attention and make here want to read the whole article. Ask yourself, would this passage make you drop everything else to click on the article? That's the one you want! There's more guidelines and technical explanations for choosing extracts in this entry. Without going into detail, you'll copy and paste the extracts into the project's Trello card in a comment, clearly marking that this is the pre-copyedited version (It's the copy-editor's task to update the extracts later).

Finally, read over your comments one last time. Is there anything that you can solve on your own now? Go for it.

You're now ready to pass your translation to the copy-editor and do a little bit of Trello work.

From translation to copy editing, back to Trello

Ok, you've done it! There goes your translation. Now it's time to step away from the unassailable loneliness that is the translator's lot in life to make your work a collaborative activity!

For this we'll head back to the Trello project card you made earlier. If all has gone well, you will have finished your translation before the due date you set for yourself (or, if you didn't calculate the time it'd take you so well, you will have reflected this by changing the due date.

Uploading the translation and moving the card to the next stage of the process

So, now you're going to do two things.

  • a) Upload your translated document to the card itself. This is as simple as it gets: you just drag the file you want to upload until it hovers over the project card. The card will show you a prompt to add the file and you just drop it there. Here's Trello's help page talking about bit more about adding attachments to cards (includes nice pictures).
  • b) Exit the card (you can just press "Esc") and drag the card to the "Copyediting/Proofreading stage" column.

The project is now in the hands of the editor! The editor, being "subscribed" to the Trello card, will get a notification for this and, if you've been coherent with the due dates, will know to expect the attachment. Once you've carried out these procedures it is the editor's responsibility to write a quick note on the Trello card confirming they've received the file The ball is now in the Editor's and Project Admin's court.

However, editors are people and like everyone else, they can miss an email notification. If you see that the editor hasn't confirmed the document reception within a day, either @+mention them in the Trello card, or shoot them an email. If the editor doesn't give signs of life by then, cry for help, he or she may have gone MIA. If this happens, the project can be pitched to another editor.

Mid-project Admin tasks

Now we will delve into some mid-tutorial Tao of the Guerrilla Translatior schizophrenia. Were you playing the part of the translator or the admin? It matters not, in the Tao everyone gets their share of screen time.

So, with the "Project Admin" hat on you can check on the extracts that have been chosen so far, see if the copy-editor has changed the due date, so you can get an idea for when you'll format the post, etc.

Right about now, it's a good time to choose images for the post. Choice of images is no small thing, it can either make or break a post. This is specially important when we're selecting images for a Featured post, but it's also an important factor in Standard Translations (the example we're using for this tutorial). You can read more about choosing images and image sources in this entry

Additionally, are there any tasks listed in the checklist that you can take care of right now? If so, do them. It's much better to get these things sorted out mid-process and allowing for plenty of error than in a rush at the end.

Copy editing Guidelines

Ok, for this next section we will stop playing the part of "the Translator" to become "the Copy-editor". The translator and the copyeditor should never be the same person. Period. This is why we work in pairs. We, however encourage both translators and or copy-editors to be project managers for pro-bono translation work.

With that cleared up, let's take a closer look at the copy-editing process. Please take the time to read this, even if you're working with as a copy-editor

Making the final copy

Links for this section

Formatting, proofreading and publishing

  • Wherein the Guerrilla Translator takes the translated and copy edited text and formats it for publication in our web-magazine. Then, before releasing it to the world, she proofreads it one (hopefully) last time.

Formatting for Wordpress

How to post a Standard Translation

Proofreading

Scheduling and preparing Social Media

Publishing

Links for this section

Social Media, post-production and re-publishing

  • Wherein the Guerrilla Translator promotes the hell out of the great task she has accomplished, ties up any loose ends in this tale, and gives the project new life (and maybe lucrative sequels) by working to have it republished in different specific outlets.

Social Media Campaign

Post-production

Republishing

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