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Save the dates of the Christmas Party and English Today VI!
NEaT’s annual Christmas Party will be held on Thursday, the 5th of December in Helsinki. More information to follow in November.
The next English Today seminar (our 6th!) will be held on March 13, 2020, and everything you communicate afterwards will be more clear. More information to come in the spring. Save the dates!
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Panel discussion on business skills: What I wish I had known in the beginning
Don’t forget! If you are a freelancer or entrepreneur, the panel on business skills is coming up soon! NEaT board chairman Ian Mac Eochagáin will host, and you will hear advice on success from four successful NEaT members. For more information, the speakers and their topics are listed here.
Finnbrit Language Centre
Fredrikinkatu 20 A 9
October 21, 1 pm until 4 pm
To make sure we have enough tea/coffee and biscuits/cookies for you, RSVP to info@nordicedit.fi.
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NEaT members’ greetings from METM19 in Split, Croatia
Alice Lehtinen:
“My favourite workshops were “Teaching scientific writing” by Ann Bless, “The Pitfalls of comparison in scientific writing” by David Barick, and “Translating Pseudo-English” by Lloyd Bingham. I am in the middle of giving a course on scientific writing at Biomedicum, and so this presentation was very useful for me – I loved Ann’s idea of “the enemies of good writing”. David addressed a language point that I often have to correct and struggle with in my editing: comparisons. In scientific articles, the writers often have to compare different things to each other and, well, it gets messy! It was so comforting to know others struggle with this area and to get some guidance on helping writers make clearer comparisons. Lloyd’s presentation on pseudo-English was fun, a light relief after some of the heavier sessions. It got me thinking about English words we use in Finnish in the “wrong”way... very entertaining! Once again, METM did not disappoint, and I'm already raring to go for next year’s conference!”
Kate Sotejeff-Wilson:
“#METM19 is over. This is the CPD highlight of my year and I was thrilled to be on a panel this time with the new Humanities and Social Sciences group. As we start to digest it all and go home, here are my top 5 snapshots:
1. With my co-panelists we discussed guidelines for humanities and social translators, as a memorial to Susan DiGiacomo’s work. The conversation continues... L-R: Alan Lounds, me, Theresa Truax-Gischler, Fiona Kelso, Sally Burgess.
2. With colleagues from Nordic Editors and Translators at MET – spot the ITI and SENSE members! The four organisations are looking at ways of working together more closely.
3. Fantastic workshop by Alan Lounds on parentheses – where does the comma go in this one? I have permission from Alan to share information from/rework the workshop for NEaT members if you are interested.
4. Lynneguist Lynne Murphy gave a keynote based on her brilliant book on US-GB English differences, The Prodigal Tongue. Since at least five members have the book, would you like to have a discussion of it for NEaT members? It could be online (e.g. via Zoom or appear.in) to include members abroad.
5. As ever, the fringe programme was superb. In choir we learnt a folksong in the traditional Dalmatian klapa style – “The tulip and the lilac... my beloved, I will never forget you...” Anyone who fancies translating it into English or a Nordic language, get in touch.”
Virve Juhola:
“This was my 5th METMeeting (out of 15 since 2005), and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I took part in two workshops: 1) Mary Ellen Kerans’s workshop on the two aspects of information ordering that affect flow within sentences and beyond and 2) Juliet Macan’s workshop on the secrets of a flexible CAT tool, memoQ. With Mary Ellen, we focused on two features of English cohesion: parallel structures and theme-rheme progression, addressing information ordering and form simultaneously. In her words, these aspects are particularly useful for sorting out what’s wrong with prose that may be grammatically correct and accurate but still hard to follow. We first looked at smoothly flowing prose, then identified the patterns we could see and finally collaborated on a couple of hands-on editing tasks. So very interesting, especially for those who have studied a bit of text analysis before. In the memoQ workshop, Juliet took us deep into the settings of the translation memory software, where one rarely has time or motivation to go during a typically busy translation assignment. The settings are worth a visit, however, because adjusting a few of them can make a huge difference in a large translation project. Among other things, we learned about importing image files for a proper context-sensitive preview within the tool and about defining untranslatables, which can save a ton of time in a project that includes many repetitive proper nouns. Obviously we ran out of time with this one but got plenty to take home nevertheless. I also really enjoyed Lynne Murphy’s keynote on the differences of British and American English – a very sensible and liberating overall message for a non-native user – and I got to exchange a few words about NEaT with her and have my copy of The Prodigal Tongue signed. Last but not least, there was time for a bit of intersociety liaison with the representatives of MET, ITI, SENSE and SfEP. At NEaT, we appreciate our peer and role-model associations’ efforts and strive to contribute to and build on the synergies. I was originally planning to skip next year’s conference in Spain, but after hearing that METM20 will be held in beautiful San Sebastián in the Basque country, I don’t think I can. It will be way too sweet of an occasion to miss.”
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November Writing Retreat
From 7 to 9 November in Kaunianen, Finland. A structured writing retreat can work for any kind of writing project and any kind of writer – including academics, researchers, students, bloggers, journalists, creative writers, marketers, teachers, business writers, and anyone else with a message to share. More information here.
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Join the Team
NEaT is a growing organization, and we hope to find even more ways to serve our members in 2017. Would you like to join the team? We need volunteers for keeping up with social media, planning education, holding meetups, writing a member’s directory and much more. Let us know at info@nordicedit.fi.
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Cooperation partner presentation: EASE
Part of a regular feature on NEaT’s partner organizations. Text: Ian Mac Eochagáin
NEaT has been an official sister organization of EASE, the European Association of Science Editors, since 3 April 2017. EASE has existed since 1982 and now has members on every continent. It exists to improve standards globally, raise the profile of scientific editors and support professional development. EASE publishes its official journal European Science Editing quarterly and also organizes an annual conference, the next of which will be held in Valencia, Spain from 11 to 14 June 2020.
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An Unexpected Journey to Finnish
Kate Sotejeff-Wilson wrote about Kersti Juva’s book Löytöretki suomeen on the NEaT website. Kersti spoke about her book to NEaT members at English Today V in March 2019. Read the article here.
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