This part deals with the most important quality of a good translator or editor: Being a perfectionist.
Being a perfectionist
Although our profession is a creative one, the demand for fast high quality translation services with turnarounds sometimes as short as a couple of hours is increasingly becoming the most prevalent feature of what we do. I can tell you from experience that this has cost us many great talents who simply could not cope with the new rhythm.
But the most alarming impact of this market change is even more dangerous: Many great talents started compromising quality in favor of deadlines.
Working in Arabic translation means being a perfectionist. It does not matter how tight your deadline is, delivery should always mean delivery of top quality work, it should never be diminished to just delivery.
Never let your first draft be your last.
The job of the editor/subeditor is to fix what you miss, not what you leave behind because of tight deadlines.
Producing a perfect Arabic translation is virtually impossible. We all do mistakes, and we all miss an idea here or there. What makes the difference is not having zero mistakes, but having zero mistakes that could be avoided.
