Episode 37: Smart Habits for Improving Your Online Research with Elizabeth Adams

Smart Habits for Translators

In today’s episode, we’ll talk about one of the most important tasks in our workflow. Whether you’re a translator, an interpreter, a copywriter, or if you offer any other language-related services, you have to do your fair share of research. In fact, when we don’t do our research, it shows in the final product.

So, today we’ve invited a colleague to join us. She really impressed us at the last two ATA conferences with her knowledge and smart tips on improving your online research.

Elizabeth Adams graduated with a degree in Russian in 1998 and moved to Moscow. It was an interesting time and place to be looking for work as a translator, and she ended up translating and editing for a wide range of companies, reading constantly, and learning on the job. Twenty-two years and three children later, her translation business focuses on plain English translations of Russian legal texts, from laws and court rulings to contracts and discovery documents.

Here’s a summary of our conversation with Elizabeth:

How and when Elizabeth started her freelance translation career, how it has evolved over time

What her typical workday looks like and what changes she had to make due to the COVID-19 pandemic

What smart habits help Elizabeth draw boundaries between work and personal life

What other smart habits have been helpful in her career

How to ask clients the right questions when it comes to the research you need to do for a translation

What steps translators should take when it comes to analyzing our translation projects to guide our research strategy better

How to decide what tools and resources to use for our research

What to do if you lack the time to conduct proper research for your translation projects

Elizabeth’s tips, tricks, and favorite tools for better online research

Resources we mentioned in this episode:

Elizabeth’s website

Connect with Elizabeth on LinkedIn, Twitter, and ProZ

How to set up a Google alert

PerfectIt: editing and proofreading tool

WordRake: editing for clarity

Copernic: desktop search solution

Join our email list to receive a free guide from Elizabeth Adams: “Search Tips for Translators”

For a full list of resources, visit the show notes page for this episode: https://smarthabitsfortranslators.com/podcast-episodes/37