Over the past three months, our team has faced a paradoxical situation: two scientific papers, translated and edited according to all standards, were rejected by journals. Despite attempts to find out the reasons, the editors` responses remained vague. We will share this experience to draw translators` attention to the pitfalls of academic translation. Case 1: Italian medical translation
The client ordered the translation of an article into Italian for publication without specifying the specific requirements of the journal. After sending, the work was rejected with the wording "low language quality" without any specific comments.
We offered additional proofreading by a native Italian speaker. Because the translation was done by a Russian-speaking specialist. Native Italian speakers who speak Russian are a rare phenomenon in Russia, and it was problematic to contact foreign performers within the client`s budget. Result: A second refusal with the same justification. In the end, the client blamed the translator, but the real reason for the refusal remained unclear.
Case 2: Springer Nature and Hidden Conditions
The second story is similar, but with a key difference: the client planned to publish in a specific journal (Springer Nature). After being rejected due to "bad English," we studied the publication’s website and found a partner agency offering pre-editing with a publication guarantee.
Conclusion: Some journals may promote paid services through affiliated services, forcing authors to choose between paying or risking rejection.
Recommendations for authors:
- Clarify the journal’s requirements in advance. Request design guidelines.
- Involve native speakers for proofreading. This increases the cost of the process, but reduces risks.
- Sometimes a guarantee of publication is not a question of quality, but of finances.
Our clients’ stories show that even a flawless translation can face subjective assessments or hidden interests of publications. Sometimes the problem is not in the translation, but in the non-obvious rules of the game. Keep this in mind when preparing an article for publication.
