Articles
May 9, 2019
EVENT REPORT: Press Trips and Language Tips for Travel Media
By Rob Goss
On March 20, 2019, twelve people, including five first-timers, attended the latest SWET Travel Writing Meetup in Tokyo at Book House Cafe, Jinbocho, for a presentation by photographer Phil Ono about the handling of style issues in place-name signage used around the country and a presentation by travel writer Rob Goss about press trips for travel writers and... more
August 31, 2018
Romanizing Japanese: Polishing the Fine Points
By Lynne E. Riggs (Republished from June 2016)
Whether it’s a book title in a bibliography, a few lines of poetry, or a snippet of dialogue, romanization of Japanese in English text is a skill every wordsmith associated with Japan mobilizes now and then, and though it may seem easy, there are many intricacies the committed editor will want to... more
June 5, 2017
Workshop: Cultural Translation and the Information Gap
by Richard Medhurst
Japanese and English readers come from different cultural backgrounds. References that are familiar to the former, whether from tradition or popular culture, may baffle the latter. The SWET workshop I led on May 17, 2017 tackled cultural translation for the general reader, considering how to handle the “information gap” between the two kinds of readers with the aim... more
March 8, 2017
SWET Toolbox: Review of JMOOC Online Classes
By Winifred A. Bird
MOOCs or “massive open online courses” are a new form of distance learning intended to bring university-level education to the far-flung masses by capitalizing on widespread Internet access. Typically, courses are free or low-cost and involve a combination of video lectures, reading material, online discussion forums, tests, and other assignments. Since the concept emerged in 2008, Stanford,... more
November 1, 2016
SWET Toolbox: Writing Strategies and Inspiration
Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2006, 295 pages. ISBN: 9780316014984
Reviewed by Richard Medhurst
Appropriately named for the SWET Toolbox column, Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer is a series of short pieces on becoming a better wordsmith from pepping up sentences to forming habits that will... more
July 4, 2016
SWET Toolbox: Resources for Writing in Your Non-Native Language
By Winifred A. Bird
As writers, translators, and editors, most of us feel confident both writing in our native language and repairing other people’s clunky prose; the click of words falling into their proper places becomes, over time, as unmistakable as it is satisfying. Venture into a foreign language, however, and the process is not so pleasant—at least for me. Although... more