Interpretation Services Editing and Proofreading Services

An interpreter walks into a room having been told the date, the duration and the language pair. What waits inside might be a patient receiving a diagnosis, a factory audit involving specialised machinery, a board meeting with three speakers on a video link, or a police interview. Interpreting is performed in real time with no opportunity to look anything up, and the difference between a good assignment and a failed one is largely decided before the interpreter arrives.

We edit what interpreting agencies and language service providers produce — assignment briefs and interpreter instructions, glossaries and terminology packs for specific engagements, service descriptions covering simultaneous, consecutive, whispered and remote modes, interpreter codes of conduct and impartiality guidance, booking and cancellation terms, client guidance on working with an interpreter, remote and video interpreting protocols and technical requirements, quality assurance and complaint procedures, interpreter qualification and vetting documentation, confidentiality and safeguarding policies, public sector and healthcare framework documentation, conference and event planning material, and training and continuing development resources. Our editors work on the document that decides how the assignment goes.

The assignment brief is the highest-leverage thing an interpreting agency writes, and most versions of it are a booking confirmation wearing a brief's name. An interpreter given the subject matter, the participants and the terminology in advance performs at a level an unbriefed interpreter cannot reach at any price. We write these so the brief states what the meeting is for and what outcome the parties are working towards, since interpreting a negotiation and interpreting an explanation call for different judgement; so participants are listed with roles, accents and any speaker likely to use dialect, jargon or read from a prepared text at speed; so subject-specific terminology is attached — even a fifteen-item list of product names, drug names or acronyms removes most of the risk; so the mode is specified along with what it requires, because consecutive interpreting doubles the duration and a client who has not been told this will overrun; so sensitivity is flagged, whether a diagnosis, a dismissal or a bereavement, since an interpreter who knows what is coming manages the room better; and so the practical facts are there — room layout, whether documents will be read aloud, whether a recording is being made. Briefs written this way are the reason some assignments are described afterwards as seamless.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including client bookings, briefs and terminology. We are editors rather than interpreters or language service advisers, and we offer no view on linguistic accuracy, professional standards or assignment handling. What we can do is make the brief carry what the interpreter needs before the door closes.