Editing Levels - Examples

Editing Levels - Examples

ALS offers a range of four services: basic, basic plus, native, and literary/academic. We have provided an original document below showing the first three versions. We have not provided a literary/academic version as it is only a simple business letter. While this example is English, the same pattern would be followed for other target languages.

The basic version cleans up the document and makes it comprehensible. However, while grammatically correct, it is awkward in some places. Nevertheless, the document is understandable and compared to the original, the wording is a great improvement.

It is important to remember that clients are not evaluating the product per se. Their evaluation is based on improvements from what they sent us, keeping in mind their budget and time constraints.

The basic plus makes a few more improvements and looks substantially better.

The native version presents quality native English writing.

Clients pay by the word; the word-rate increases by level. Hence, the higher the rate, the more time we spend improving the document.

This is the original English document received:

(This document is published here with permission from the writer. Confidentiality is very important to us at ALS and to our clients and we expect all of our editors to keep ALS work confidential.)
Dear Ms. Jane Doe:

We are very happy to know that your company is more and more prospering.

We are more than delighted with your showing great interest in our new power cleaner at the exhibition that was held last month ago. Enclosed, please kindly receive the catalogue, standard specifications, and the price list of the power cleaner. Please feel freely to consult us regarding the detailed specifications and the prices. We will very flexibly respond to your requests according to the order amount, delivery date, and so on.

We also offer special specifications to suit the product to the conditions at your installation location. As for specification changes, our sales engineer will visit the site to provide you with the estimate.

We are looking forward to hear from you.

Yours Very Truly,

I. Revised to Basic -- Editor comments are addressed to the original writer - see below for more on comments.

Dear Ms. Doe:

We are very happy to know that your company is prospering.

Thank you for showing interest in our new power cleaner at the exhibition last month. We are enclosing a catalog, standard specifications, and the price list of the power cleaner.

Please feel free to consult us regarding detailed specifications and prices. We will respond to your requests and can be flexible as to the order amount, delivery date, and so on. (??Is this correct??)

We also offer non-standard specifications to suit the product to the conditions at your installation location. For specification changes, our sales engineer will visit the site to provide you with the estimate.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Very truly yours,

II. Revised to Basic Plus

Dear Ms. Doe:

Thank you for showing interest in our new power cleaner at the exhibition last month. We are enclosing a catalog, specifications for the standard model, and the price list.

Please feel free to contact us regarding detailed specifications and prices. We will be delighted to respond to your requests and you will find we can be quite flexible to best meet your needs. (??Is this correct??)

We will be happy to discuss non-standard specifications to suit the product to the conditions at your installation location. For specification changes, our sales engineer will visit your site so that we can provide you with an accurate estimate.

We are very happy to know that your company is prospering.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Very truly yours,

III. Revised to Native Level

Dear Ms. Doe:

I enjoyed chatting with you at the exhibition last month and learning about your business.

I am writing to follow up on your interest in our new power cleaner. Enclosed you will find a catalog, specifications for the standard model, and the price list.

Please contact me regarding detailed specifications and prices. I will be happy to discuss non-standard specifications to suit the product to the conditions at your installation location. I think you will find the XYZ Company can be quite flexible to best meet your needs. For specification changes, our sales engineer will visit your site so that we can provide you with an accurate estimate.

We are very happy to know that your company is prospering.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Editor comments are addressed to the original writer to point out areas that the owner may want to correct. In the example above there are few comments. The following are examples of comments that might be used are:

(??Is this correct??)

(??This is not clear to me.??)

(??This sentences seems illogical.??)

(??Is the name spelled correctly??)

If comments do need to be inserted, they would be inserted the style indicated. The (?? ??) structure is used to grab the client's eye.

We also require that editors use the track changes function in MS Word when editing and that it shows the editor as ALS Editor. Our clients expect that the function be used, and we expect that it shows our business name. We are unable to accept or pay for work where this has not been done.

This can easily be done in under a minute by changing the user settings in MS Word.

アーロンランゲージサービス株式会社

日本における翻訳、校正などの代表者連絡先： honyaku@aaronlanguage.com

Aaron Language Services
アーロンランゲージサービス ( ＡＬＳ )
San Francisco, CA
USA
サンフランシスコ市発行　営業ライセンス番号：388028 001 07

アメリカのカリフォルニア州サンフランシスコに拠点を置く翻訳（英語、和英、英和、日英、英日、論文翻訳等）、英文校正、多言語翻訳、多言語校正、ネットスクールの英文ライティング指導等の総合サービス。
ALSはグローバル体制で24時間対応。
（なお、お支払いには日本国内の銀行口座をご利用いただけます）。

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