Checking links and e-mail addresses

When re-keying URLs and e-mail addresses, and there are many of them on official court documents, especially from Puerto Rico, it is a good idea to click on them and see if they respond as they should. It is easy to misread or mistype a URL or e-mail address. This would render it useless to potential readers.

With websites, you will know that you have come to the right place if you are taken to the site stated in the URL (and you haven't been given an error message). E-mail addresses require a different tactic. (You probably are not going to write the person or agency saying "Hello, I am writing you to check if I got your e-mail address straight. I am the translator working on the document you drafted."). You could, however, either google the e-mail address and see if there is a match or even better go to the website where you suspect or know it could be found.

These seem like small tasks, but the more precise you are, the more attention you pay to detail, the higher you will be regarded by your clients.

H for him M for her: mystery solved!

For quite some time now, I have been perplexed by Mexican Voter ID cards and how "Sexo:" is unmistakeably followed by "M" even when the person in the photograph on the card is unmistakeably FEMALE, or "F" as would be listed on the equivalent document in other Latin American countries.

Of course, I never put "M" for a woman in the English translation, and this custom was never an obstacle in translating that section properly, but nonetheless I was anxious to find out what the M stood for...Until it dawned on me. "M" is for "mujer" and "H" is for "hombre".