About Me

Menitza Botha
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My background

As someone with five years’ experience in tertiary education, I know how to encourage success with high-stakes projects. I believe in unlocking an individual’s full potential through collaboration.

As a former project manager in a language agency, I understand the delicate balance of factors that is needed to make sure a project is successful. To this end, I am deadline driven and people centred. I will help you through every stage of the process.

I am also proud to be an editing mentor for the Professional Editors’ Guild. As a mentor, I am trusted to convey my knowledge and skills to persons starting their editing journey. Teaching novice editors is not just an honour: the reputation of the profession rests on your shoulders. This is one of the ways that you know you can trust me – because a national body trusts me with training their editors!

My personal philosophy

I know this page is called ‘About me’, but any language practitioner worth their salt knows that this is really about you, the client. I’m here to put my passion for language services to good use: helping you make your words mean the most for you. Helping a client can take many different forms, such as:

  • translating an informed consent form
  • editing a thesis or dissertation
  • rewriting a financial contract into plain language

No matter what your language need may be, you can be sure that I will help you by offering work of the highest quality, on time, every time. I love what I do and this passion translates (as it were) to professional excellence.

My experience

Editing - 5 years
Translating - 6 years
Copywriting - 6 years

Qualifications and Training

I literally studied to help you with your language-service needs. I obtained the following degrees from the North-West University cum laude:

  • A bachelor’s degree in language practice and communication with English and Afrikaans as additional majors
  • An honours degree in language practice

Both my qualifications are dedicated to training excellent language professionals.

My qualifications centred around modules like the following:

  • Communication studies
  • Introduction to journalism
  • Theory of translation
  • Literary translation
  • Text editing

But my training doesn’t stop there. In fact, it never stops. As someone working in the fields of editing and translation, I value continuous professional development. To this end, I have taken the following courses (so far) to make sure I always stay up to date with the latest best practice in the field:

  • Clarity in health communication (Plain Language Institute and Romina Marazzato Sparano)
  • Creating clear online content (Plain Language Institute and Kate Harrison-Whiteside)
  • Plain language (South African Translators’ Institute and Prof. Eleanor Cornelius)
  • Write 101 (University of Queensland, Australia)
  • Copyediting and proofreading (John Linnegar)
  • Grammar for editors (John Linnegar)

The way we communicate is constantly changing and adapting, and I strive to learn and adapt with it. This ensures that I can offer you the best service for your language-related needs.

Professional memberships

No person is an island, least of all language practitioners! I am a proud member of the following professional bodies:

  • The South African Translators’ Institute (SATI)
  • The Professional Editors’ Guild of South Africa (PEG-SA)
  • The Southern African Freelancers’ Association (SAFREA)
  • The Writers’ Guild of South Africa (WGSA)
  • The American Copy Editing Society (ACES)
  • The Editorial Freelancers’ Association (EFA)

As a member of many professional bodies for language services, I have my finger on the pulse of all the most recent developments in language and communication. This translates to better, more informed service for you.

My approach to language work

What is one of the most important things in language work? Your disposition as a language practitioner. And I am most discerning when it comes to correct language use.

I care about commas, halt when it comes to hyphens and run straight to my trusted dictionaries to find out whether that word should really be in italics.

There is one very important caveat, though. I am not a grammar Nazi.

First and foremost, I believe that it is everyone’s right to use language without being judged.

By the same token, I understand that the world often judges a book by its cover, or someone by their language use, and that it does so quite harshly. I am most emphatically not someone to throw stones at anyone’s language use.

What I am here to do is to ensure that your reputation is protected and that your message is clear and powerful. I clean up and correct with respect.

Software

I take my work one step further by using professional software. This includes translation memory systems, editing software and macros, and page design software.

Using professional software has many benefits that flow over to the client, such as:

  • saving you money because of reduced worktime
  • improving consistency in language use
  • improving accuracy in translation

I am comfortable using the following software and working with documents in their formats:

  • Autshumato | WordFast | memoQ | PerfectIt | Macros | Adobe Acrobat Pro | InDesign | MS Word | MS Excel | MS PowerPoint

Accreditation

I can sing my own praises until kingdom come, but that doesn’t mean that you have to believe me, right? Luckily, you don’t have to take just my word for it.

I am accredited for editing by the Professional Editors’ Guild of South Africa (PEG-SA), and for translation between English and Afrikaans by the South African Translators’ Institute (SATI). I am also a certified Pro on ProZ.com’s network of professional translators.

What my accreditation means for you:

  • You know that the work you get will be of the highest quality
  • You know I am the right choice for your need
  • You have more than my word to go on

Fields of experience

First and foremost, I am a generalist. This comes from my background in tertiary education, which has exposed me to a very wide variety of subject matter. This means that whatever you need, I can work with.

Below are some of the fields that I have extensive experience in:

  • Clinical trial documentation
  • Informed consent forms
  • Management sciences
  • Sales and marketing
  • Financial contracts
  • Philosophy
  • Linguistics
  • Literature
  • Theology
  • Sociology
  • Psychology
  • Economics
  • Technology
  • Statistics

Clients

With several local and international companies putting their trust in me to deliver professional editing and translation services, you know that you can, too.

I edit, translate and write copy for the following South African companies:

Language Inc.

Language Inc., one of Africa’s premier language services providers

Unity Health

One of the top primary healthcare providers in South Africa.

NWU / CTrans

The NWU’s Centre for Translation and Professional Language Services (CTrans)

Stilet.Digital

The digital division of academic journal for Afrikaans literature, Stilet.

Testimonials

I also work for international language service companies such as Enago and Conversis, who offer academic editing services and medical translation services, respectively.

Menitza Botha has been part of our freelance team since April 2018. She is an excellent language editor and plain language reviewer. We can recommend her services with confidence. She is always professional and meets her deadlines diligently.

Language Inc.

Annette van der Merwe

Ms Botha has an exceptional talent for editing and translation and always delivers excellent work. She has a meticulous eye for detail and when it comes to editing norms and standards, she is very well informed and up to date. She is definitely one of our top editors.

NWU / CTrans

Wendy Barrow

During the Unity Health product launch from April to August 2020, Menitza Botha delivered copywriting and editing services for high volumes of corporate communication, social media posts and scripts for video interviews.

The quality of both these services were beyond reproach and I have no hesitation recommending her editing services.

Unity Health

Hettie Fowlds