Academic & Research Translation

Academic translation for international publication is a specific challenge. The translation must not only be accurate but must read as though it was written by a native speaker of the target language who is also a specialist in the field. A research paper translated by a linguist who is not a scientist may be linguistically correct and scientifically unclear. Journal reviewers can detect translation regardless of its accuracy.

We assign academic papers by field. Life sciences papers go to life sciences specialists. Engineering papers go to engineers. Humanities work goes to humanities-trained translators. We are not willing to assign a physics paper to a translator whose expertise is in law, regardless of their language qualifications.

For researchers publishing in English-language journals, we pay particular attention to register and field-specific convention. Scientific English has specific conventions for describing methods, discussing results, and drawing conclusions that differ from Italian academic conventions. We translate with these conventions in mind, not just the words.

For grant applications, we understand that the purpose of the document is to secure funding and that the evaluation criteria include clarity and persuasiveness in addition to accuracy. We translate grant applications with that purpose in mind.

In practice

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