Fact Finding: helping people who need to know
something and don't have time to learn

I was hired to provide project support in translating from Czech into English a book about events leading up to the signing of the Munich accord.

The account included scores of supporting quotations by English speaking personages (Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt etc.). These quotes, from both public speeches and as reported from closed meetings, had been translated from English into Czech for the original version of the book.

Translating them back into English would render the general meaning fairly accurately, but would not necessarily reflect the exact wording of the speaker. The author was no longer available for consultation and his sources were not documented.

Using library and internet resources, I tracked down each quote in the book and inserted the correct wording into the MS Word manuscript, citing the sources in an appendix. Where multiple versions of a quote were available, I provided both versions, as well as annotated references to the multiple sources.

I also provided final copy editing services for the manuscript. Our result was a complete, accurate and polished piece of work, which was submitted on schedule.

Other than the shipping of the original book, we communicated throughout both phases of this project via the internet.