Non-English articles
From WolfWikis
Finding a good article in a foreign language is a frequent problem in research. The information seems useful, only there is a language barrier. When you can't find a translation, there are still solutions to the problem, though, even if you're not friends with a bilingual colleague:
- Read the abstract only. Often this is in English, especially if indexed by CAS or another service. Maybe this is enough to go on. Or at least enough to know how much time you should devote to finding this article.
- Try searching for articles published by the same authors in the same years, maybe there's already a translation out there.
- Find equivalent journal articles, reviews, or books. Try patents, too, especially if you're looking for a foreign patent. Often an English version will appear later.
- Scan tables, graphs, equations, and figures to pick out some of the relevant portions. If nothing else, maybe that will help determine where to work with a foreign language dictionary on translation. The Libraries have numerous foreign language dictionaries, check the catalog and narrow by language and subject.
- Purchase a custom translation. There are numerous commercial services which do this for you for a fee, and it probably ensures more accuracy than doing it yourself with a dictionary. NCSU's Foreign Languages and Literatures department also offers this service.
These tips are largely adopted from Robert Maizell's How to Find Chemical Information, supplemented by librarian experience.