Freelance Translators Enter the Blogosphere
Author 何羿
There are close to 50 million weblogs or blogs at least Blogs provide an online discussion forum for issues of current interest and are updated regularly with new short articles on which readers can comment. Originally an online writing tool helps its users keep track of their own online records, the blog quickly turned into a key part of online culture. The method provides an easy way for an average person to publish material of any topic he or she wishes to discuss on Webages. With a popular issue, a blog can attract tremendous attention and exert great influence on target group concerned. The translation world has experienced significant influence by the blogosphere.
Many are focused on single issues, such as politics, religion or scientific topics. Translation blogs are those which mainly focus on disseminating or commenting upon translation matters, such as case study, industry news discussion and development trend. Many translation bloggers are professionals in the industry, and a number of them are working for translation companies.
It seems there are several reasons why people are blogging on translation. The essential one is the obvious purpose for business promotion. In comparison with the usual method of translation business promotion (e.g. magazines, seminars and newspapers), a blog is more intimate and responsive. It shows the deep knowledge and experience bloggers have to the target group they want to communicate and can draw interests from their potential clients.
Another reason is that blogs contribute to the enhancement of interactivity among blog users. The interactivity among blog users is achieved by reading other blogs, acquire resources, and express their thoughts by posting comments to entries. Blog comments are viewed as essential to the interactive features of blogs. The key feature of blogs is that interest group can be informed to each other. Blogs have other press functions including video clip insert and playing, photos, transform into desired outputs (e.g., embedded into a blog entry section), and send these outputs back to external environments. Each post may be commented upon by the readership, and the discussions can range from a few humorous one-liners to complex and well-written rebuttals or contributions, and everything in between. Thus, translators can change ideas with numerous readers freely. In addition, for translation companies, blog is a new way to propagandize itself and reach potential customers.
However, it takes much efforts to start and maintain an active translation weblog, which not only needs a host to update the content regularly, but also requires blog readers to visit and interact with frequently. Many blog sites have been abandoned soon after their creation for lack of new entries. For a translation company, how to attract blog readers is an even harder task: indeed. Summing up our experience as a translation blogger, we put forward the following suggestions.
As to the content, an expert opinion, a wide range of topics and a distinct personality are qualities that readers seem to value in a translation blog. Translators with a deep knowledge of translation theories can place his/her recent studies in the context; experienced translators can share his/her thoughts or describe interesting or important things happened during translation work.
We prefer to group the information into different sections.
1. Title
A surprising but practical title is needed to attracting people involved into find details of your article.
2. Introduction
Tell the reader what the post is going to be about. This paragraph should be designed to catch the reader’s attention.
2, Body
Use one main idea/theme per paragraph. Use examples, facts, opinions, statistics, quotations, ect., to support your idea.
3. Keyword
You should contain enough keywords spreading around your article context for listing ahead by search engine most relevant people use.
3, Conclusion
Write a surprising, interesting or thought-provoking conclusion if possible.
In all, blogging remains an individualistic, sometimes anarchistic and convention-breaking form of communication, especially in translation field.
