Have you ever thought about how the Printing Department keeps up with all the supplies needed for next month’s print run? What about how the Missionary Department knows the amount of Message material necessary for the countries they manage? Are you curious to know how we choose what articles to post on branham.org and when to post them? Or, what a typical day consist of for someone who works in the Shipping Department?
Over the next few months, we plan to do a series of Q&As with individual departments here at VGR based on some of the questions you submit. Every so often we will pick a different department to field questions, and then post the answers from that office in the following days. To open the series, here is our first topic:
Text and Translation Departments
The Text and Translation departments work very closely together. The Text Department is responsible for maintaining the transcriptions and translations of Brother Branham’s sermons, while the Translation Department focuses on quality control and tracking the location for each translation project as it flows through our many processes.
The Text Department manages all text-based content using a custom-built computer program called the Text Repository. The Text Repository is a very important tool, as it contains the master file for every English or translated sermon. Part of maintaining the text includes transcribing the English audio sermons into a text file. The transcribed text is then sent through a series of editing steps to ensure the best possible transcription. Once satisfied that the English text is the highest possible quality, a PDF file is released to the Translation Department to start the translation process.
The Translation Department receives all newly translated files to do a line-by-line check against the English manuscript. We do this to verify that the translation says “Just what the tapes say.” Our findings from line-checking are then sent back to the translator for their final proof. The Text Department enters any corrections found from the final proof and then the sermon is available for recording. As you might expect, the recording session should reveal any remaining errors that exist. As one last check, the Translation Department will do a comprehensive review of the entire project to verify all corrections have been entered properly, and that there are no outstanding issues. Once this check is complete, the finalized translation is available for the Text Department to release in all of our available text formats (branham.org, themessage.com, book format, microSD, etc.)
If you have a question about the work that takes place in the Text and Translation Departments, you can submit it in the feedback button below. We won't be able to answer all of the questions but look for a handful of them, along with the answers, to post on branham.org in the coming days.