DOs and DON'Ts in Comment Writing
| Please DO… | Example |
|---|---|
| …describe how the target deviates from source (rather than the other way around) |  “wild” added to “horse” “horse” translated as “wild horse”  ENG source only reads “horse”, not “wild horse” |
| …make sure that the location of your intervention is clear | “True” and “False” left in English in the table heading |
| …use back-translations whenever useful, and ALWAYS in the case of mistranslation | “donkey” translated as “monkey” “usually” was omitted in target “once a week” was added in target |
| … advise, if your comment is FYI only | FYI: in Zedish “with backbone” and “vertebrate” have the same root word, which makes the correct answer obvious. Unchanged by Ver |
| … use impersonal and neutral approach | Verifier feels… Changed by Ver I think… I changed |
| … run the spell-checker in your comments | Spilling mistake corrected by Ver |
| … use quotation marks when referring to text | The word “length” was adapted as “big”. OK The word length was adapted as big. OK |
| Please DON’T… | Example |
|---|---|
| …describe what it reads in the source (but rather how the target deviates from source) | In ENG source it reads “book” Not “booklet” “book” translated as “booklet” |
| … describe the issue through the action performed by you | Ver changed “house” to “building” “building” translated as “house” |
| … write comments that are not understandable to reviewers that do not understand the target language | “քըցխ” changed to “իընշւխյւզգ” (Which term is the comment referring to? Who made the change? Why?) “building” translated as “house” |
| … refer to other projects | Ver prefers the answering categories as used in TIMSS Ver suggests categories “ZZ”, “YY”, “WW” for better equivalence to source |
| … refer to other country version(s) | Ver prefers the answering categories as used in the French version from Switzerland Ver suggests categories “ZZ”, “YY”, “WW” for better equivalence to source |
| … use sarcasm, criticism, exclamation marks, offensive language | As usual, the Zedish team has AGAIN used as many as four different synonyms for “car”!!! while source uses same word throughout the unit Four different synonyms used for “building”. Harmonized by Ver Translation clumsy Translation not natural, better wording suggested by Ver |
| … describe grammar or minor issues in great detail | Possessive suffix ‘si’ missing. The suffix is always required if the main word is preceded by a possessive pronoun. Sometimes it can be dropped, if the ‘owner’ of the object is clear from context, but in this case this is not possible. Possessive suffix ‘si’ missing. |
| … use abbreviations or acronyms (except VER) | BT of RO C is “donkey”. Changed by ver. Back-translation of response option C is “donkey”. Changed by ver. |
Before delivering the work, please read your comments through once more to make sure they are understandable also when not looking at the verified file.