Qwir text + design

Academia needs texts. Whether in written or spoken form, we seek to present relevant information in a clear manner and to communicate our passion for the subject at hand. Academic communication is not just about sharing insights but showing why they matter. Academic communication needs to be precise, articulate, appropriate to a given discipline, and attractive.

We offer professional text design for academic communication. We edit and/or translate monographs, journal articles, and book chapters, as well as graduate, post-graduate, doctoral, and post-doctoral theses. We subtitle recordings of talks, panel discussions, and online networking events. We design posters and presentations for conferences and project exhibitions. With us, you will share your knowledge successfully.

English is the global language of science and academia. It is used for publications, at conferences, for research projects, and in university teaching. Researchers and other academics know that they need to communicate their insights in English to share their knowledge with the world. Even publications in other languages often require at least an abstract in English.

This means that academic texts are increasingly expected to follow certain (mainly UK- or US-based) norms and structural patterns, which might differ from other national academic norms. At the same time, as they are read by experts and others all around the world, they need to be designed in a way that is accessible to people with all kinds of cultural backgrounds.

We translate and edit academic texts for a global (academic) audience in English. We make sure your arguments are expressed clearly and convincingly while staying true to your personal style.

Professional text design for academic publications

Academic texts crucially rely on a clear and convincing structure for their arguments to shine. They also need to adhere to different standards in regard to style, punctuation, and formatting (such as APA, Chicago, Harvard, etc.) as well as to guidelines by publishers and journals. Additionally, literature lists and bibliographies are expected to follow specific norms that dictate details even on the level of punctuation.

We specialise in copy-editing academic texts for publication as contributions in journals or edited books, monographs, and funding applications. We also copy-edit graduate and post-graduate as well as doctoral and post-doctoral theses or parts thereof (abstracts, single chapters). We make sure to honour your personal style while respecting the specified guidelines and, where appropriate, suggest ideas to further improve your argument.

Upon request, we also provide a thorough reference check of both in-text citations and the reference list or bibliography to guarantee that your referencing is complete and corresponds to the respective formatting and referencing rules.

German ‹ › English

Sharing our knowledge across languages and cultures requires professional translation work. Translating academic texts means clearly and convincingly communicating ideas, arguments, and nuances. The translation needs to fit into the textual landscapes of the respective field, which do not only differ between languages but also between disciplines and knowledge traditions. This requires contextual understanding, an awareness of domain-specific intertextuality, and a sensibility for all the little details.

We translate academic texts of all kinds from and into German and English, taking into account the respective conventions as well as publisher requirements where applicable. Upon request, we also research quotes to see if a published version of a text you quote already exists in the target language.

We provide translations that successfully integrate into existing textual landscapes of the target language and meet corresponding norms in regard to referencing, bibliography, argumentative logic, and technical terminology.

Editing academic translations

Professional translation of academic texts requires not only precision and creativity but also diligent research and deep engagement with the topic at hand.

Machine translation and generative artificial intelligence (AI) have become common tools in academic contexts, including for quick translation work. They certainly save a lot of valuable time; however, they are no reliable replacement for the care and quality provided by professional human translators, who not only bring context knowledge, precision, and creativity to their work but are also intimately familiar with the relevant conventions and discursive patterns of the respective knowledge community. In the domain of academic publication, as elsewhere, good texts need a human touch.

We offer translation editing for translations of academic texts created by AI. This means that we thoroughly revise the pre-translated text in respect to the source text, checking the text’s logic, structure, style, and discursive positioning. We make sure that the translation expresses your (human) expertise.

Subtitles for knowledge …

Video and audio recordings of talks and debates have become a necessity for academic exchange. They allow more people to benefit from knowledge transfer – that is, if they are understood. Subtitles do not only provide important support for video and audio recordings in different languages but are often, as transcriptions or translations, the very condition for understanding and interacting. Making spoken content from academic contexts accessible to a wider audience depends on professional subtitling.

We create subtitles for talks, panel discussions, online presentations, etc. in English and German. We respect subtitling-specific requirements (such as line length, segmentation, and synchronicity) in the respective language and employ best practices. We provide the final subtitle file(s) in the common SubRip format (SRT) or a format of your choice so that you can use the subtitles in your project right away.

… and translation

If subtitles are intended to also serve as a translation, we create subtitles directly in the target language. Make your content available to a global audience with English subtitles or embed it in local contexts with German subtitles. Subtitles can also help remove intralingual barriers, such as with translations into simple language or subtitles specifically designed for a non-specialised audience.

Presentation slides

We create custom slide designs (for PowerPoint, for Keynote, or as a PDF) for your presentations. Whether you give a keynote, a panel talk or a lecture, our designs will support you in providing clear information and capturing the attention of your audience.

Posters

We design posters and other material for your presentations at conferences, research meetings, etc. We structure and present information depending on your target audience and communicative intentions. We can also manage communication with the printing company of your choice. Let your ideas shine in any format.

How much is it?

Prices for editing, translation and subtitling of academic texts depend on a number of factors. These include text length, level of complexity, and restructuring, if applicable, as well as style guides, terminology requirements, etc.

We calculate our prices for editing based on standard pages (1,500 characters including spaces each), for translations based on standard lines (55 characters including spaces each), and for subtitles based on film/audio minutes (60 seconds each) of the source material.

For translations, prices include a translation check by a second expert translator. If necessary, we also research specialised literature and parallel texts.

For editing work, we insert our edits as trackable changes in the document, which you can then either accept or reject.

We include additional information and suggestions in the form of written comments in the document. Requirements by stylesheets, internal terminology databases etc. will be implemented directly.

We usually provide texts as Word documents (.docx files), though other formats are possible. We use built-in Word styles for formatting so that the translated texts can be processed directly in desktop-publishing software such as Adobe InDesign.

We look forward to your request for a quote. Please send us all relevant information about the project in question (such as the text itself, its intended purpose and your ideal/possible submission deadlines) so that we can provide you with a response tailored to your needs.

We are happy to provide additional services based on the completed text, such as preparing it for content-management systems, publishing it online, layouting, etc. Please contact us to discuss further details.

Prices are final prices exempt from VAT in accordance with § 6 (1) no. 27 of the Austrian VAT Act.