Group Dynamics

Profound language skills in both English and the target language are necessary, but not always available, for producing good translations. Obviously, a group of knowledgeable persons working on a text will more likely favour a good result than one from an individual effort. To achieve a good working group takes effort and fortunate circumstances, as interested and talented individuals are a rare find. In the event that one is able to get three or more persons to commit to work together, one could consider a few ways of collaborating -- the key component being the frequency of the interactions. Here are two broad suggestions in methods of collaboration:

a. Working Group (highly recommended): simply establishing a regular and frequent time to get together to work on a text. Finding a quiet and supportive environment (drinking water, light snacks, lighting and power sources) to meet is critical to productive work. The computer and Internet skills and their availability have become unavoidable thus members of the team need to be empowered accordingly. Frequency of meetings (2-3 times/week of 2-3 hour sessions) is important as translation as an art improves with practice.

b. Remote Working Group: where members exchange texts/translations via email, chat or other Internet platforms. Reasonable results can be achieved but output, with respect to actually meeting together, will likely be less, both in volume and quality. Fortunately, it is easy to share daily via email, via WhatsApp or even via a group blog, insightful messages, snippets of suggestions and/or translated work.

In both above arrangements, electing/choosing a group ‘motivator’ is necessary in terms of encouragement towards and achievement of targets of work output. This motivator will most likely be the ‘face’ of the group, and responsible for submitting work to the various institutions. Moreover, any kind of group would benefit in exploring such Internet sharing platforms as “Google Drive” together with multi-user “Google Docs”.