Some questions about my editing

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SilverPhyX
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Some questions about my editing

Post by SilverPhyX »

Newest wannabe editor for Index here.

This is going to be rather long, so please bear with me.

Okay, I've been going through volume 7 the last couple of days. I'm doing the edits onto a copy-pasted word document, and am planning to transfer once I've gone through the whole volume. As I've just hit page 60, I figure I should actually ask if some of the edits I have done are overstepping my bounds as a editor or not.

I'll list my edits by type:

1. Minor - Adding commas to separate clauses, putting obvious missing stuff, polishing.
Example: "St George Cathedral" ==> "St. George Cathedral"
or
"Today, although it looks like the Puritan church is run by the Cathedral of Canterbury, the actual decision-making power has in fact now been transferred to St. George Cathedral."

==> "Today, although it looks like the Puritan church is run by the Cathedral of Canterbury, the actual decision-making power has, in fact, now been transferred to St. George Cathedral."

2. Minor - changing the article, usually from "The" to "A" or "An", when the thing is mentioned for the first time. I just felt it a little awkward to use "the" when just introducing the thing in question.
Example: "The red-haired priest, Stiyl Magnus," ==> "A red-haired priest, Stiyl Magnus," (from Prologue)

3. Somewhat minor - Switching adjacent words to get better order, like "now only" into "only now".
Example: "when Archbishop Laura stands in front of a crowd, she looks too noble to be even mortal" ==> "when Archbishop Laura stands in front of a crowd, she looks too noble to even be mortal"

4. Somewhat major - Using different words of similar meaning to replace an awkward phrase.
Examples: "decreased by several degrees" ==> "dropped by several degrees" (when Orsola mentions she's being hunted.)

"Orsola who was abducted" ==> "the abducted Orsola"

5. Major - Massaging the sentence to make it less awkward/clearer. Involves switching words around, deleting redundancy, and messing with certain words.
Examples:
"Unfortunately, it seems that only she feels that as long as she puts these clothes on, she won’t be noticed in the crowd. Because of her crystal-white skin, clear blue eyes, and shining golden hair"
==>
"Unfortunately, it seems she believes that as long as she puts those clothes on, she won’t be noticed in the crowd. Yet, because of her crystal-white skin, clear blue eyes, and shining golden hair"

"It is a hot day, and as London is known for its foggy weather, this aspect of summer- the ever-changing weather- is something that cannot be belittled. Due to the increasing moisture caused by the intermittent rainfall, together with the foehn and summer heat wave, it results in amazingly high temperatures, so these rather enjoyable-looking tourist attractions have their own shortcomings as well. But for someone like Stiyl, when he first chose to stay in this city, he had already considered the shortcomings, and thus does not mind it."
==>
"It is a hot day, and as London is known for its foggy weather, this aspect of summer- the ever-changing weather- is something that cannot be taken lightly. The increasing moisture caused by the intermittent rainfall, together with the foehn and summer heat wave, results in amazingly high temperatures, so these rather enjoyable-looking tourist attractions have their own shortcomings as well. But someone like Stiyl, who had already considered the shortcomings when he first chose to stay in this city, does not mind it.

Number 4 and 5 are what I am most worried about, since it does involve deleting words at times and switching stuff around.

Well, that's pretty much it. I would like to get some confirmation if this is doing too much, as I don't want to continue if my editing method is too heavy-handed.

Once again, thanks to all the translators and other editors who've been working on this, and especially Teh_Ping, who translated this particular volume.

SilverPhyX

P.S. Yeah, I have a few questions about questionable word usage and unclear passages, but I'll save those for later.
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Darklor
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Re: Some questions about my editing

Post by Darklor »

SilverPhyX wrote:2. Minor - changing the article, usually from "The" to "A" or "An", when the thing is mentioned for the first time. I just felt it a little awkward to use "the" when just introducing the thing in question.
Example: "The red-haired priest, Stiyl Magnus," ==> "A red-haired priest, Stiyl Magnus," (from Prologue)
There is the question is he really mentioned for the first time? Since its already vol. 7 were you are...
SilverPhyX wrote:But someone like Stiyl, who had already considered the shortcomings when he first chose to stay in this city, does not mind it.
I am not sure but I have the feeling without the "for" and the "and thus" would be a little bit missing.

But for someone like Stiyl, who had already considered the shortcomings when he first chose to stay in this city, and thus does not mind it.
Please don't mind my bad english since I'm german.

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Enigma
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Re: Some questions about my editing

Post by Enigma »

1: Feel free but it probably works well enough both ways.

2: That would probably work better.

3: I agree with that one.

4: "Dropped," in this case, is just a slightly more aggressive form of "decreased." If you feel something doesn't quite convey the mood well enough, feel free to change it. The abducted Orsola works fine to me, though context-sensitive, etc.

5: I'm fine with your changes, but I'm surprisingly not all that picky with wording.

Admittedly, I'm fairly easy-going with my edits. If you want to use someone as a reference, you're probably better off looking through Tact's edits.
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Re: Some questions about my editing

Post by Teh_ping »

Geez, now we're nitpicking about my translation.

Fine, I'll let you guys to nitpick on my translation, as always. 4chan's complaining about my translation :) , you're commenting about my translation :lol: , and even I'm complaining that my writing skills have worsened (partly due to a lack of emphasis on vocabulary in Singapore) :mrgreen: . Microsoft Word always somehow edit the sentences, so I would normally follow through with that. Maybe I should use those grammar books to re-practise on.

About no. 4, for my original, there should be a comma, so it should go 'Orsola, who was abducted, ...'. Just a trained style of mine, but feel free to comment.
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SilverPhyX
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Re: Some questions about my editing

Post by SilverPhyX »

Ah, thanks for all the replies.

@Darklor
Darklor wrote:
There is the question is he really mentioned for the first time? Since its already vol. 7 were you are...
About that. "THE red-haired priest, Stiyl" implies that Stiyl is the ONLY red-haired priest in existence, just as phrases like "THE ordinary high school student, Touma" implies that he is the ONLY ordinary high school student.

Of course, it is true that they are the only ones with those respective descriptions we know of, but there could certainly be other red-haired priests and other ordinary high school students. That was the reason I replaced the "The" with "A" or "An".

About the second part, those were the deletions I was talking about. If you were to add those back in, the sentence sounds really awkward. Read both versions out loud and the difference is there.

The main problem with that is the "for" and "and thus" contradict each other, as if you were to use "for", the "who" is required, but if you were to use "and thus", the "who" would have to be deleted.

Using "for" will also require a completely different way to end the sentence. In the end, I felt it was best to delete both, which kept the sentence closest to the way it was translated. The other viable option would be something like this:

"But someone like Stiyl had already considered the shortcomings when he first chose to stay in this city, and thus does not mind it."

@Enigma

Thanks for the comments. I'm not quite sure how I would be able to see Tact's edits, though. Could someone direct me to them?

@Teh_ping

Yeah, usually I just do the double comma and make the description a separate clause, but the sentence with that particular bit about Orsola was already getting super long and I wanted to make it less complex.

It's similar to phrases like "the perpetrators who had kidnapped Orsola, the Amakusa" which I altered to ==> "Orsola's kidnappers, the Amakusa".

Honestly, though, your translation is fine. Most of my edits are the minor ones, and I realize Japanese has a different word-order and grammatical structure, which leads to awkwardness when translated into English. I know in Chinese you have to switch things around sometimes because the descriptors always come before the object being described, while English likes to put them after.

Whew. Super long post complete.

SilverPhyX

Edit: Oh, right. It seems most of my edits are okay, so I'll continue has I have been, unless anyone objects?
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Re: Some questions about my editing

Post by Enigma »

SilverPhyX wrote:Thanks for the comments. I'm not quite sure how I would be able to see Tact's edits, though. Could someone direct me to them?
If you want to look at one person's edits in general, you can look at their contributions page and click "diff" to display the changes they made in that revision. To locate their contribution pages, just find a page they've edited, click the history tab, and you should be able to see all of the previous page edits. Also in a page's history, you can see "(cur)(last)". 'Last' shows you the difference in edits they made when they made them, whereas 'cur' shows the differences between that revision's edits and the current page (which is why the last edit will never have it as an option).

Also, I make good use of the "Show preview" and "Show changes" buttons, so if you haven't, you may want to check them out.
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Re: Some questions about my editing

Post by Darklor »

SilverPhyX wrote:
About that. "THE red-haired priest, Stiyl" implies that Stiyl is the ONLY red-haired priest in existence, just as phrases like "THE ordinary high school student, Touma" implies that he is the ONLY ordinary high school student.

Of course, it is true that they are the only ones with those respective descriptions we know of, but there could certainly be other red-haired priests and other ordinary high school students. That was the reason I replaced the "The" with "A" or "An".

About the second part, those were the deletions I was talking about. If you were to add those back in, the sentence sounds really awkward. Read both versions out loud and the difference is there.

The main problem with that is the "for" and "and thus" contradict each other, as if you were to use "for", the "who" is required, but if you were to use "and thus", the "who" would have to be deleted.

Using "for" will also require a completely different way to end the sentence. In the end, I felt it was best to delete both, which kept the sentence closest to the way it was translated. The other viable option would be something like this:

"But someone like Stiyl had already considered the shortcomings when he first chose to stay in this city, and thus does not mind it."
Ah I am no native speaker so it isnt as awkward for me as it seems to be for you.

I read it like that: "a red haired priest" could be anyone - but since it is Styl, I think "the" wouldnt be incorrect...

---
I am still thinking about the second part. Dont know if I can get to a conclusion for myself, but btw. why it and not plural?
Spoiler! :
Maybe its because I had read it partwise (at first I thought its because I am German, but if I try to translate it as close to the english translation as possible, then I see the problem to.

I had read it: But for someone like Stiyl - explanation - explanation - and thus does not mind it. And somewhere in that explanation canted the meaning for me. Its hard to explain it its like I am blocked: As if this sentence are two.

For someone who is considering things always in advance thus he doesnt mind later.

But for someone like Stiyl who had considered the shortcomings of the city the first time he choose to stay and thus doesnt mind them.
But for someone like Stiyl who was considering the sortcomings of the city the first time he choose to stay and thus doesnt mind them.
Please don't mind my bad english since I'm german.

Darklor

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Re: Some questions about my editing

Post by SilverPhyX »

Oh, it's not plural because the "it" in that sentence is referring to the London weather that the previous sentences in the paragraph was talking about. "It" is one of the shortcomings Stiyl considered.
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Re: Some questions about my editing

Post by Darklor »

Hm? But I thought he had considered the shortcomings (all of them) and not especially the weather... :? Otherwise I would have expected, that had considered the weather of the city beforehand...
Please don't mind my bad english since I'm german.

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Re: Some questions about my editing

Post by SilverPhyX »

Hmm, how to explain it...

Okay. The "shortcomings" are plural. That is correct. What the sentence is saying, though, is that Stiyl has considered those "shortcomings" in the past, when he came to the city.

The "it" at the very end is referring to the London weather just talked about by the 1st and 2nd sentences in that passage.

"It" is one of the many shortcomings Stiyl has already considered in the past, so he does not mind that single thing-the London weather-now.

I think that's about as clear as I can make it. I hope that cleared things up. English is kind of confusing sometimes.
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Re: Some questions about my editing

Post by Snorca »

To throw in my two cents, if I were to edit it, I'd probably have made it:
But for someone like Stiyl, who takes into consideration the shortcomings after staying in the city the first time, he doesn't mind them.
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Re: Some questions about my editing

Post by SilverPhyX »

Hey guys,

Been a while, but I've been working my way through Volume 7. Had to restart since we seem to have agreed that things should be in a "storyteller" frame instead of a "commentator" frame, so lots of tense changing.

I do have a couple of questions about the content though:

1. In Chapter 2, Part 2, near the end of the whole conversation about the Amakusa's portals, there are a couple of notes. One is about the Dutch, the other about the "Black Ships". I would like someone to look over the paragraphs that contain those notes and help me figure out what is being said. I kind of get the one with the Dutch note, but the one with the "Black Ships" note seems to be missing a few lines or something.

2. Chapter 2, Part 3, the 4th passage down from the beginning of that section. What is that line trying to say, exactly?

Any help would be appreciated.

SilverPhyX
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Re: Some questions about my editing

Post by Darklor »

SilverPhyX wrote:
Been a while, but I've been working my way through Volume 7. Had to restart since we seem to have agreed that things should be in a "storyteller" frame instead of a "commentator" frame, so lots of tense changing.
Really? There was already a conclusion regarding this question?
Please don't mind my bad english since I'm german.

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Re: Some questions about my editing

Post by SilverPhyX »

From the impression I am getting, I think we are leaning toward the "Storyteller" frame. If we end up liking the "commentator" frame more, I still have the version with the present tenses, so no harm done, really. I just figured it would be easier to change stuff into past tense first and then, if things turn out that I don't need it, I can just use the present-tense version.
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Re: Some questions about my editing

Post by Teh_ping »

SilverPhyX wrote:From the impression I am getting, I think we are leaning toward the "Storyteller" frame. If we end up liking the "commentator" frame more, I still have the version with the present tenses, so no harm done, really. I just figured it would be easier to change stuff into past tense first and then, if things turn out that I don't need it, I can just use the present-tense version.
Well, remember what happened the last time someone took action on their own? I think you should leave it as it is for now, there's no rush for the edits to past tense until everyone agrees on this.
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