Creativity or accuracy?

Or BOTH? ...

When we think of CREATIVITY, we generally think of ARTS or of special manual or intellectual skills. We then maybe recall some celebrities such as Michelangelo, Bach, Fellini or Shakespeare, to name but a few.

Generally, we associate this term to everyone’s capacity to INVENT or BUILD an object, or then to find ORIGINAL (creative) SOLUTIONS to problems.

We also might think that a creative person must be particularly GIFTED and even a bit CHAOTIC. Or then, he or she might live apart from the rest of the world.

In contrast, the term PRECISION rather evokes something STATIC.

A precise person shall perform a RIGOROUS and EXACT work, which will also be accurately thought through.

Thus, both concepts seem to be antithetic – at least at first. As all oppositional topics are in fact complementary.

Yes, but:

How to talk about CREATIVITY in a field such as MEDICAL TRANSLATION that requires high EXACTITUDE?

The question is NOT to just consider ONE of the two aspects, but to understand HOW and WHEN CREATIVITY CAN SUPPORT PRECISION. Here some examples:

> In ADVERTISING

Creation of targeted SLOGANS for a specific CULTURE and AUDIENCE

> In REWORDING and REDRAFTING of a sentence/passage

That enables a BETTER UNDERSTANDING of the message and of the concept

> In ADDING or DELETING of one word/many words

For EASY READABILITY and in order to express a concept MORE PRECISELY

Thus, CREATIVITY and EXACTITUDE fit perfectly TOGETHER!

Lorenza Oprandi*, Medical Pharma Translation (December 2020)

* As a former non-verbal psychotherapist/art-therapist, I am fully ware that creativity is much more than what’s described in this short article…