Translation and proofreading

This page describes the responsibilities for translation and introduces support on how to order translatation and proofreading from external resources and an initiative to increase translations explained in further detail on subpages.

Who is responsible for translations?

There is no particular department or office at the University responsible for all translations. Instead, each department and office is responsible for their own communication. This also includes planning for and setting aside resources for communication in English, or translating information from English into Swedish, when relevant. This for instance includes:

External web pages (umu.se and others)
Internal web pages on Aurora
Internal and external news items and events
Newsletters
Social media entries
Internal information to staff and students.

Available support

Umeå University is investing in translations between 2022 and 2025. The purpose is to support research and education by increasing the access to translated information. To receive support from the initiative to purchase translation, please learn more under Translation initiative 2022–2025.

Translate yourself or order translation?

Whether a text should be translated by a professional translator or be performed internally, by members of staff with good English proficiency, depends on the type of information or text.

Translate yourself

Suitable for:

simple, short digital news and notifications aimed at an internal audience;
drafting uncomplicated emails;
continuous and minor updates of web pages and social media entries;
when the importance of information is higher than the need for linguistic perfection.

There are several machine translation services available you can use to obtain a first draft. But make sure to always edit the text before using it. If you are using a machine translation service for a language you are not proficient in, please ask someone to read the text for you.

A list of Swedish-English dictionaries that can be of help is available on this page.

Professional translation and editing

Suitable for:

large amounts of information 'with long durability' and long reach that are already available in Swedish. For instance, information on external web pages or pages on the website for staff, Aurora;
formal public authority information;
large-scale printed products. For instance, leaflets, magazines and rollups;
research content or news items of a complicated nature.

When is proofreading or editing a good idea?

If you have written a text in Swedish or English, and the linguistic quality is important for the text to have the intended impact, it is often a good idea to ask someone else to proofread the text. This applies to native writers too. Sometimes a colleague's eyes are sufficient, but sometimes professional help is needed. Umeå University has an agreement for English proofreading services that includes editors specialised in academic texts. For Swedish proofreading, there is a national framework agreement in place.