Rates for academic articles intended for publishing Thread poster: Howard Cohen
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Howard Cohen
France
Local time: 13:02
French to English
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I wanted to know what others here charge for translating rigorous academic articles that will be most likely published in journals. In my case, specifically, these are articles for translation from French to English, written by university academics, concerning art, culture, architecture and the environment.
| | | | | Standard rate | Jul 1, 2023 |
There's nothing in your description of the source texts that warrants the application of anything other than your standard rate per word.
| | | | | Per word or per hour… | Jul 1, 2023 |
Some translators think it’s OK to charge more for difficult texts.
Others argue that they’re only difficult because you don’t know enough about the field.
Some texts are intrinsically hard, though, and if you can get away with charging more, do so. That said, universities can be very tight.
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For a while (2009-2015) I translated articles to be published (not academic though) on politics, economy, finance, environment, culture from English, French, Italian and Spanish into Portuguese. Some articles were more difficult than others. The client paid my rates but then they found cheaper translators than me and we had to part ways…
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Kevin Fulton 
United States
Local time: 07:02
German to English
| Many academicians ... | Jul 3, 2023 |
as almost as impecunious as translators, especially in the humanities. As a consequence, they don't have the funds to pay more than an absolute minimum for translations. Nowadays, in the United States at least, many journals are starting to charge the author to cover the cost of publication, thus further reducing the funds available for translation.
In the US, sometimes the relevant university departmental budget will help cover the cost of a translation/publication. In such cases, the tra... See more as almost as impecunious as translators, especially in the humanities. As a consequence, they don't have the funds to pay more than an absolute minimum for translations. Nowadays, in the United States at least, many journals are starting to charge the author to cover the cost of publication, thus further reducing the funds available for translation.
In the US, sometimes the relevant university departmental budget will help cover the cost of a translation/publication. In such cases, the translator can be at the mercy of university bureaucracy in order to be paid in a timely manner. Although I live in a university town with a good potential for translation work, I stopped accepting jobs from academicians early in my career due to the hassles I encountered when trying to get paid.
[Edited at 2023-07-03 22:21 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Higher rates justified | Jul 4, 2023 |
Higher rates are definitely justified for academic translation. If you can translate academic articles at the same pace as you could a standard email text, then that is because you have years or even decades in the field. Your clients are paying for that experience. Typically, academic translation also involves looking up the cited sources to see whether the quote has been published in the target language already (in which case you're bound to using that "official" published translation and are ... See more Higher rates are definitely justified for academic translation. If you can translate academic articles at the same pace as you could a standard email text, then that is because you have years or even decades in the field. Your clients are paying for that experience. Typically, academic translation also involves looking up the cited sources to see whether the quote has been published in the target language already (in which case you're bound to using that "official" published translation and are not supposed to just come up with a translation on your own). Tracking down those sources can be incredibly time consuming. Depending on your field, your clients may come up with neologisms in their language and you're going to have to discuss that with them (Does a term for that concept already exist in the target language? Do you need another neologism there? If so, what?). Academic translation will also often include advising the client on target text norms - for example I spent quite a while explaining to a client why one of the peer reviews criticized the lack of discussion of the results. She had worked that discussion into the results section, whereas in English-language papers in this field, the results and discussion are separate sections. The amount of experience that kind of work requires absolutely justifies higher word/line rates than you might charge for other types of texts.
I can't give you any specific numbers for your language pairs because I don't work in them, but there are networks of academic translators you can get involved in and then get a feel for what sort of rates are typical. ▲ Collapse
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