Home Blog AST-5 at ATA57: Mastering Technical Translation By Karen Tkaczyk

AST-5 at ATA57: Mastering Technical Translation By Karen Tkaczyk

Come one, come all. Well, not everyone! This year I am giving a session that is part of the new Advanced Skills and Training (AST) Day on Wednesday, November 2, prior to the conference itself. This hands-on workshop costs extra and we have limited it to 25 participants, so that everyone can have personal attention.

Here is the abstract for my half-day workshop:

Technical translators with excellent technical writing skills stand out from the crowd, in the quality of their translations and in their income potential. This hands-on editing workshop for technical translators working into English will teach you how to produce clear and concise English scientific and technical texts. For translators who haven’t studied technical writing or who rarely receive detailed feedback on their translations, we will begin with some diagnostic exercises and basic principles of good technical writing. We will then move on to advanced techniques for those who already apply the principles of effective technical writing and editing to their translations.

Attendees who register by October 14 will receive several sample passages that you may edit in preparation for the workshop (optional). The presenter will also provide an extensive reference list, as well as suggestions of useful software. This workshop will include all new examples, different from those used by this speaker in previous ATA seminars and webinars.

Register and see all the other AST day courses at https://www.atanet.org/conf/2016/astday/.

I have prepared sample texts for editing that will be sent to participants in advance, so that they may practice editing and reflect in peace beforehand if they wish, and then compare with the edits that the group comes up with on the day.

I have given other presentations and workshops on this topic. Those have been well-received. In case any participants have attended those previously, I decided to prepare all-new examples for the ATA conference this year.

I hope that as well as providing many tips to help participants produce better technical translations day in, day out, we will have fun!

Karen Tkaczyk, CT

Karen Tkaczyk works as a French>English freelance translator. Her translation work is highly specialized, entirely focused on chemistry and its industrial applications. She holds an MChem in chemistry with French from the University of Manchester, a diploma in French, and a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Cambridge. She worked in the pharmaceutical industry in Europe and, after relocating to the U.S. in 1999, she worked in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. She established her translation practice in 2005.

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