Saturday, January 28, 2017

Scorecard, in general, may refer to the definition taken from, considering a small card for recording the score while watching or taking part in a game, race, or competition.

Let's say we are now talking about the scorecard in smaller domain; translation and its process. We need to know what it is actually and what involves in the process. Further, when we are a service provider, we need to know how much it costs for one scorecard of 500 words, 1000 words, and so on.

First of all, 

What is the scorecard for?
To the best of our experience, this scorecard is used to measure the quality of one translation package, let's say 15,000 words of a legal document. 1,000 or 2,000 words will be considered as representing the whole document. Otherwise, this is used to assess one translation result to determine if the candidate meets the criteria expected. The second purpose is okay. The first purpose is not okay. At least, it is based on our experience.

What to pay attention to when scorecarding?
First and the most important one is the evaluation form. You will see different evaluation forms with their respective grade criteria. You do not have to be worried about this. You just need to read and learn and apply what you have understood. The rest will be your ability to understand the translation and assess the translation quality. The forms can be as follows:

Overall assessment

Subcategory to fill in

Severity level

The reference we can refer to when assessing - this must be read through before assessing

You may see different forms of evaluation, but hold fast to the first principle as mentioned above. The difference between forms may not be significant and will not take your time.

Ethics in scorecarding
As this process will determine the overall quality of the translation or at least determine the life of a translator or a new translator in certain translation companies, you need to be as objective as possible. Never touch the preference or style domain as it means that you are not objective; you are subjective.

After scorecarding
After scorecarding (you submit the evaluation), there will be two more steps to complete. The company that hires you for scorecarding will send your findings to the related translator for approval. In this step, debate and dispute may arise between translator and reviewer (scorecarder) and the simplest way to avoid these is to assess the translation as objective and valid as possible, so that there is no way for the translator to debate against you or defend his/her translation as he/she knows that the errors are valid with reference. If the translator accepts all of your changes or findings, the company will not be back to you. But if the translator has comment or objection to your changes and findings, you need to explain and the final decision will be determined.

Then, be wise and objective when scorecarding.




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