Revision and proofreading

Revision literally means to “see again,” to look at something from a fresh, critical perspective. It is an ongoing process of rethinking the paper: reconsidering your arguments, reviewing your evidence, refining your purpose, reorganizing your presentation, reviving stale prose.

But I thought revision was just fixing the commas and spelling?
Nope. That’s called proofreading. It’s an important step before turning your paper in, but if your ideas are predictable, your thesis is weak, and your organization is a mess, then proofreading will just be putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. When you finish revising, that’s the time to proofread. For more information on the subject, see our hand-out on proofreading.

How about if I just reword things: look for better words, avoid repetition, etc.? Is that revision?
Well, that’s a part of revision called editing. It’s another important final step in polishing your work. But if you haven’t thought through your ideas, then rephrasing them won’t make any difference.

What does Babylon offer?
Babylon offer revision services of Arabic-English-Arabic translations. We always seek to ensure the following:
• Depending on the quality of the text, we upgrade the text to the level of a native speaker which could be almost as expensive as translating ‘from scratch’. More often, however, the costs will be lower than translating from scratch, especially because the reviser will not have to check all terminology.
• We make sure that text is understood by end reader.
• We normally charge our clients per hour.