Professional Serbian-English

translation services

www.odista.com

Project workflow in a professional translation agency

For a professional translation agency, quality control is paramount. The agency should have a
standard workflow in place which assumes that no translator is perfect, that no proof-reader
is infallible and that the only way to assure quality is by having multiple stages of control in
place.

Not every translation agency or outsourcer is ready to embark on the process of achieving
ISO 9001 compliance, but every translation service provider should have a basic system of
quality control in place.

The diagram below shows the typical workflow used by Odista, a Serbian-English translation
company based in Novi Sad, Serbia and uses the Serbian-English translation pair by way of
example. This type of process is often referred to in the industry as TEP – translation, editing
and proofreading. This chart is by no means set in stone and can and should be adapted for
different situations. But it shows some fundamental steps that every translation project
should follow in the quest for the highest possible standards in translation.

1. Client sends
3. Translator
agency new Serbian
2. Terms agreed with allocated to job
materials for
client (in advance!) (native English
translation into
speaker – always!)
English Serbian

6. Draft 2 sent to 5. First English draft

4. Translator carries
senior editor for sent to proofreader
out first draft
more editing, often for comparison
translation from
without reference to checking and
Serbian to English
the Serbian original proofing

7. (Optional but
9. Final version of
desirable) Draft 3 8. Client responses
Serbian-English
sent to client along integrated into final
translation sent to
with any outstanding draft by senior editor
client
queries

As can be seen from this simplified chart, there is more to translation than simply translation.
This process is quite involved, requires the work of several quality professionals, and cannot
be done without certain expense, both in financial terms and in terms of time.

But if translation quality is to be assured, translation professionals and their clients should
require nothing less.

Odista is the world's only agency solely dedicated to English-Serbian and Serbian-English translation,
based in Serbia and employing high-quality native English speakers proficient in Serbian.

This chart is © Odista 2011, but may be used and distributed freely provided it is not altered in any way.