Giving And receiving the 'dreaded' negative feedback

I don’t think that anyone likes to give nor receive negative feedback, however this is something that happens when you work as a freelancer and it's clearly because people have different opinions, views on a specific grammar or syntax issue and because strict guidelines can be a problem on their own. I have been on both sides, first as a PM and then as a freelance translator, and although receiving negative feedback is definitely the worst bit, I really despise giving a negative opinion on a translation and I much prefer reading a well translated text and praise the translator for their job. Having said that, I noticed that sometimes, both agencies and linguists, are not very effective and most of all not very polite in giving their opinion and providing feedback on someone’s work. Not that there is guidebook on how to do this, but I thought of putting together some of what I consider 'best practices' to follow within the revision or LQA workflow – you’ll find them here below.
 
GIVING NEGATIVE FEEDBACK

• Try to be polite when you comment on someone else’s work – you may not know what the time or budget constraints were or what the translator was going through. If you are a professional translator, chances are you always try to do a great job, but sometimes things get in the way and you also should consider that we are not machines, but HUMANS and we all know that humans make mistakes.
• If the project allows it, explain your choices using the best available and relevant terminology (if you have an MA or a PGD in translation, try and use some of the most “PM-friendly” terminology from your commentaries to explain why something is wrong).
• Provide links to any reference material or reputable sources to justify your comments – this will give them relevance. If you are working into Italian, quoting Treccani or Crusca should do the trick.
• Understand when you want to make a preferential change and when you are actually correcting something. Is adding a comma to a particular sentence a preferential change or is it really needed? If your preferred amendment is not really needed and you are making it to make it look like you’ve worked on the file, don’t do it. From my perspective, a reviser or QCer that has the guts to say: “The translation looks great – I didn’t need to make any changes” is more professional than a linguist who rewrites the text completely just to show they have done something. 

RECEIVING NEGATIVE FEEDBACK

• Try not to take it personally. It is true that this is your work and it represents you and who you are and any negativity around it is essentially saying that you are not good enough, but detach yourself from a specific translation that you might have done when you were tired or overworked. Repeat with me: “You are not your translation! Oooom!”
• If you are given the chance, reply to the comments that were left in your translation, justifying your original choices and adding any relevant links or additional explanation. Don’t just say “No, it was right” or “ This doesn’t make sense” because this will show not only that you are not able to explain why you translated something in a certain way, but also that you don’t feel like spending time on it.
• If the only comment you receive is “it doesn’t sound right” or “the translation is wrong”, go back to your client or agency and ASK them to provide a more detailed feedback that can substantiate their claims and give you actual explanations on the errors they signalled. This is crucial to improve your work – maybe they’ve found actual errors that you need to accept and avoid for your future work or maybe there are no errors, but they are really telling you what their preferred terminology is.

These are only a few of the best suggestions I would give to someone who’s starting out or who has never received or given negative feedback. In this sector, I think it’s important to respect colleagues, but also to admit and take feedback in when we could have done a better job.
 
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