“But do you really have experience in dentistry?”

We certainly do. Quite a lot, in fact.

We are asked this question surprisingly often. The short answer is above. The slightly longer one begins in 1984, when Per N. Döhler completed his first professional dental translation. Our archive even remembers exactly which one it was: Pollack RL, Kravitz E, Litwack D: “Nutrition and periodontal health,” originally published in Quintessence International.

Most of the work shown on this page consists of translations. That is no accident. For decades, translation accounted for the largest part of our work—and it still does. But for us, a good translation of specialized content has never been a matter of carrying words from one language into another. Specialized texts need to be understood, researched, made terminologically consistent, edited and adapted to their medium and readership.

So broadening our work to specialized writing and editing services is not a departure from translation. It simply describes more accurately what we have long done in the course of translating and what we have added over the years: language, style and format editing, restructuring and rewriting, storyboards for videos and animations, dental software, patient information, marketing materials and technical documentation. Here we show what is publicly accessible. This overview can never be complete: much of our work happens behind the scenes, and much of it we are not allowed to show in any case.

Professional journals

Our translations have appeared in more than 50 English- and German-language professional journals in Germany and abroad. There have also been articles in French, Italian and Spanish. The number of publications we know about has now passed 2,000. It is probably higher—few publisher send complimentary copies any more, not even as PDF files.

Our contribution: depending on the assignment, translation of specialized content, language editing, terminology research and adaptation to the journal’s author guidelines.

More about “our” professional journals

Volumes in the ITI Treatment Guide series

Dental books and series

Around 100 dental books translated by us have been published to date. At first, these were mainly monographs from a wide range of dental fields. Since 2006, a particular focus has been the ITI Treatment Guides: we edit the English for language, style and format and then produce the German and other language versions.

Our contribution: translation of specialized content, English-language editing and consistency in style, format and terminology across entire book series.

More about “our” books

Moving images

We have been working with moving images for more than a decade—cautiously at first, but now with real enthusiasm. For around a dozen video titles, mostly clinical educational material, we have translated storyboards, scripts and on-screen texts. We would love to show more of them. Most of the time, we are not allowed to.

Our contribution: editing and translation of storyboards and scripts, wording adapted to the medium and short, readily understandable on-screen texts.

Cell-to-Cell Communication – Inflammatory Reactions

When cells talk to each other

We particularly enjoy working on the texts and accompanying materials for the Cell-to-Cell Communication series. It uses sophisticated 3D animations to make biomedical processes in oral and dental medicine visible, with versions tailored separately to professional audiences and interested lay people. Published by Quintessence.

Our contribution: translation and adaptation of the texts to different levels of knowledge and different formats.

More about “our” animations

And what about everything else?

A large part of our work has neither a book cover nor a journal cover: product information, instructions for use, educational materials, websites, software, patient information and quite a lot of marketing for dental companies large and small. These texts are less visible in a portfolio. That does not make them less important.

Typical assignments include:

Texts by several authors are turned into a linguistically and terminologically consistent manuscript.
Extensive technical information is turned into a clearly structured product text.
A translation of specialized content is shortened and reworked so that it functions as a presentation, voice-over or on-screen text.
A manuscript by a subject-matter expert is turned into publication-ready English – including formal requirements, figure legends and references.

Translation remains our most important work. But it is far from the only thing we do.