Il blog di Tom Jefferson aka il Maestro Sun Tzu

Disguising red herrings with language and editing
Interview with Karen Shashok, Translator and Editorial Consultant, Granada (Spain)

Can you explain your role?

My role is mainly that of scientific-technical-medical translator (from Spanish to English), language editor and author’s editor (Shashok, 2001). I also translate, edit or review manuscripts for journal publishers, and follow developments in peer review and research and publication ethics.

What are your thoughts about the technical editing quality of contemporary published research?

I have seen “corrections” during copyediting that introduced grammatical or syntactical errors, or that made the meaning less clear for readers, not more clear. Articles can be hard to read even in high-impact-factor journals. One thing likely to confuse readers is the proliferation of is misused -ing forms. Many editing changes that do not improve the text seem to reflect the corrector’s personal preference, needlessly strict adherence to some style rule, or over-reliance on software.
Nonetheless, technical editing to ensure compliance with house style seems to be handled relatively well despite the variability in how editors around the world interpret “good scientific style”. But more substantive editing to ensure logical flow and inclusion of all the information readers need to judge the validity of the study is a fish of a different colour. Fortunately, websites like Attenti alle Bufale help researchers and editors come as close to technical editing perfection as possible.

How easy is it to disguise a red herring in the text, using language and editing?

Red herrings found before the material is scheduled for publication can be made palatable by consulting the authors, who are almost always grateful that the error was brought to their attention. If the material is already passed for publication, the editor or publisher is probably on a tight schedule. It may not be possible to correct everything before the publication date, so the red herring may stay there, to everybody’s subsequent embarrassment.

How easy is it using translation?

Translators can camouflage the fishy smell by trying out several draft translations until they find one that is ambiguous enough not to immediately flag a red herring to readers, yet close enough to the original meaning not to be considered a mistranslation-which would be unacceptable to the author. But attentive readers who are experts in the subject matter will detect the red herring anyway.

How to catch and cook red herrings?

Some errors lead to internal inconsistencies in the text-for example, a correlation that is said to be significant in the Abstract but not significant elsewhere in the text. Careful rereading of the relevant sections of the text, tables or figures will usually disclose which meaning is the right one.
However, if peer reviewers and editors have missed a gross contradiction or inconsistency (for example, parts of the Discussion or Conclusions being misleading as a result of the authors’ misapprehension, misinterpretation, or mis-reporting of their own data) the red herring may stay red and smelly-unless the material is pulled and revised. Translators, copyeditors and technical editors can eliminate errors, confusion and ambiguity, but they cannot always make authors look like better writers (or better scientists) than they actually are, nor should they be expected to do so. Although translators, copyeditors and technical editors are in a good position to help (Kerans, 2005), it seems increasingly rare for publishers to budget the resources needed to catch and cook red herrings.

Shashok K. Author’s editors – facilitators of science information transfer. Learned Publishing 2001; 14: 113-21.
DOI: 10.1087/095315101300059495

Kerans ME. Project management and quality assurance in cover-to-cover translation of a medical journal. In: Hayhoe, G. Proceedings, 2005 IEEE International Professional Communication Conference, Limerick, Ireland, 10-13 July 2005. Piscataway, NJ, USA: IEEE; 2005, pp 220-36.
DOI: 10.1109/IPCC.2005.1494181

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