How to Translate Academic Papers from English to Spanish Successfully

I have already managed to accept and embrace this latest tech revolution. We cannot fight windmills. In any case, we cannot defeat them. A Spanish anti-hero taught us that in an old book. Remember printed books? Nevertheless, we need to preserve from extinction a handful of principles when it comes to higher education. In my book, students are the ones who need to learn. Not AI models. Well, yes, AI models receive constant training, I know, but human professionals studying a university career need to take charge of their own learning, and testing processes. Consequently, it is only natural and expected that students write their own papers in an academic environment.

A Thorough Grasp of the Source Text

Translating academic papers from English to Spanish requires a thorough understanding of the source text. There is no place for unsolved doubts or dilemmas. An academic paper has a specific structure that includes: title, abstract, introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, conclusion, references, and appendices. There is no need for the translator to have a degree on the subject matter of the paper. Nevertheless, she/he should have as much knowledge as possible on the topic in question in order to provide a seamless translation.

Complex ideas and concepts, as well as specialized terminology are key to academic papers. You will find them every single time. In order to understand the text on every level, it could be useful to highlight important sections, write notes on the context, and identify concepts or terms that pose a challenge. This is a prep phase of your work that might ease your way into the translation step per se. You will get familiar with the text, and then translation will flow more naturally.

Terminology Research

As with any scientific-technical texts, academic papers often use discipline-specific terminology. In order to maintain the paper’s clarity and coherence, this industry terminology needs an accurate translation. Otherwise, the paper would not fulfill its goal. Begin by compiling a list of key terms and phrases used in the original text.

An additional resource for your background work could be consulting existing literature in the same field, written directly in Spanish. As always, this must come from a trusted or official source. Your termbase or glossary will be instrumental for the completion of a specialized translation.

Academic Tone and Style

Academic writing uses a formal tone and specific style. Although you must preserve these features in the translation, many times conventions in the target language differ from the ones in the original. This is the case with Spanish. Sentence structure cannot be mirrored, for instance with the variations in the use of passive voice or the differences in sentence length.

Your best shot would be to adapt the text in order to fit these stylistic norms without changing the original's meaning. Another useful resource would be for you to read academic papers, even within the same subject matter, directly written in Spanish.

Reviewing and Editing

In translation, we all know that there is very little room for error. In fact, if review, edition, correction and proofreading are involved, the work should be error free before it gets to the client. To achieve this level of accuracy, regardless of the revision steps after your task, you need to check for grammatical errors, awkward phrasing, and any mistranslations.

It may be helpful to rely on another pair of professional eyes as a reviewer to check your work. This is how you can receive valuable feedback and insights coming from another expert, instead of “after the fact” negative feedback from the clients themselves.

The final step in the process would be making sure that your translation meets the academic and formatting requirements in place for the target language. Fulfilling each step in this whole translation process will guarantee that your translation of the academic paper is ready for publication and release to target readers.

Check out other Spanish-related articles about a wide range of topics. You can find them in our hub article below.

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