Change it, or judge it

The shape of the work has changed

Translation used to be one purchase: a linguist produced a file, someone proofread it, and the proofreading was folded into the price.

That is not how content is produced any more. An engine produces the first draft. Software scores each segment for risk. Only the risky segments reach a person. The human contribution has moved from producing text to judging it — which means the human contribution now has to be specified, priced and evidenced separately, because it is no longer automatic.

There are only two things a person can do with machine output: change it, or judge it. The first three services below change it — the specific segments your pipeline could not resolve, a whole file, or a fresh translation. The last two judge it, and hand you the evidence rather than a corrected file. What separates them is what you get back, and how it is priced.

What they have in common

Two stages, two people. Editing and sign-off are separate passes performed by different linguists. Nobody signs off their own work.

Named reviewers with recorded qualifications. We record qualifications, subject expertise and time in domain for every linguist we assign. In regulated work you should ask for it, and we will produce it.

Structured scoring. MQM error categories and severity levels, so quality is a number that moves over time rather than an opinion that varies by reviewer.

A version trail. What changed, when, by whom, against which source version.

Independence. We do not sell an engine, so we have nothing to defend when we assess one.