Multidimensional Quality Metrics (MQM) Specification

• A text uses both “app.” and “approx.” for approximately.

• Most cases of Accuracy are addressed by one of the more specific subtypes listed below.
• In Machine Translation literature, this category is typically referred to as “Adequacy”.

• A source segment has no formatting tags, but the target has a set of italic tags.

• A translation includes portions of another translation that were inadvertently pasted into the document.

• A text reads “They was expecting a report.”

• A text reads “I cannot recommend this too highly.” (The meaning can be that the speaker cannot make a good recommendation or that it is highly recommended.)

• A book title should have been italicized, but the italics were omitted.

• An HTML document has an href that points to a file that does not exist.

• During localization the location of numbers used for call-outs has been shifted and the call-outs are no longer usable.

• The name John Smith is written as “john smith”

• A text document in UTF-8 encoding is opened as ISO Latin-1, resulting in all “upper ASCII” characters being garbled.

• Headings should be blue but are green instead.

• Company style states that passive sentences may not be used but the text uses passive sentences.

The following issue types (presented without definition) are included in the Compatibility branch:

1. Application compatibility
2. Bill of materials/runlist
3. Book-building sequence
4. Covers
5. Deadline
6. Delivery
7. Does not adhere to specifications
8. Embedded text
9. File format
10. Functional
11. Output device
12. Printing
13. Release guide
14. Spines
15. Style, publishing standards
16. Terminology, contextually inappropriate

• A quality process checks the LISA QA Model issue “Book-building sequence” and it is included for compatibility with legacy processes

• Use of these categories is not recommended and these issue types are to be considered deprecated. They are included only for compatibility with legacy processes.
• Since Compatibility is not a coherent category, use of this category itself is not recommended in any circumstance, although the children categories listed above may be used for compatibility.

• A process description leaves out key steps needed to complete the process, resulting in an incomplete description of the process.

• For cases where material from the source language is not present in a translation, Omission should be used instead.

• There is a problem with the presentation of information in the text

• A text reading “The harbour connected which to printer is busy or configared not properly” is flagged by a language analysis tool as suspect based on its lack of conformance to an existing corpus.

• One example of this issue type might involve output from a quality estimation system that delivers a warning that a text has a very low quality estimation score.

• An English text has “2012-06-07” instead of the expected “06/07/2012.”

• A German source text provides the date 09.02.09 (=February 9, 2009) but the English target renders it as September 2, 2009.
• An English source text specifies a time of "4:40 PM" but this is rendered as 04:40 (=4:40 AM) in a German translation.

• A document is formatted incorrectly

• Design issues may exist either in documentions in isolation (e.g., a second-level heading is formatted as a first-level heading) or in relationship between source and target (e.g., headings are formatted differently between source and target). However, for calculation purposes, Design issues are generally included with Fluency issues for purposes of calculation.

• The Hungarian word bőven (using o with a double acute (˝)) is spelled as bõven, using a tilde (˜), which is not found in Hungarian.

• The text has a mixture of imperatives, descriptions of actions, and lists within a single process, making it difficult to follow the intended course of action.

• A link in an HTML document points to a U.S. government URL that has moved and no longer exists.

• An internal link refers to the location “#section5” but there is no anchor “section5” in the document.

• A text reads “The man the man whom she saw…”
• A paragraph appears verbatim twice in a row.

• The source text refers to Dublin, Ohio, but the target incorrectly refers to Dublin, Ireland.

• The Italian word simpatico has been translated as sympathetic in English.

• A text has errors in it that prevent it from being understood.

• If an issue can be detected only by comparing the source and target, it MUST not be categorized as a Fluency issue.

• A Japanese text includes カタカナ (full-width kana) when specifications required ｶﾀｶﾅ (half-width kana) instead, due to a limited display size.

• Warning texts are set in sans-serif, but one of them appears in a serif font.
• A portion of Japanese text is set with an obliqued face (corresponding to italics in the source text) when dot accents should have been used with a non-oblique face.

• Specifications state that endnotes should be used with roman numerals but footnotes were used with in-text symbols (*, †, ‡, etc.).

• A text reads “Check the part number as given in the screen” instead of “…on the screen”.
• A text reads “The graphic is then copied into an internal memory” instead of “The graphic is copied to internal memory.”

• A English source text uses a normal-weight serif font for body text but the Japanese translation uses a heavy-weight “gothic” (roughly, sans-serif) font appropriate for headlines only.

• An English text reads “The man was in seeing the his wife.”

• A graphic is garbled and the wrong version is shown

• Headers should appear on every page but have been omitted on odd-numbered pages.

• A screen shot shows a button with the text “Open other…” but the text referring to the screen shot tells the user to click on the “Open alternative…” button.

• The text states that bug reports should be submitted to a mailing list in one place and via an online bug tracker tool in another.

• A target text has a set of tags for bold face in the same location where the source has tags for italics.

• A Table of Contents is missing items that should be included.

• A Table of Content should be formatted with variable (hierarchical) indenting and tab leader characters, but is instead displayed as a “run-in” list.

• A document assumes that all addresses use postal codes conforming to the U.S. “zip+four” convention and includes a verification step for postal codes that does not allow for non-U.S. codes.

• As of September 2013, the intention is to expand this branch in the future with more specific issue types.

• The letters T and A in the word TAMPA are spaced too close together and collide.

• A translated Japanese text has set lines too close together, making the text difficult to read.

• Specifications stated that FCC regulatory notices be replaced by CE notices rather than translated, but they were translated instead, rendering the text legally problematic for use in Europe.

• An English sentence is 253 characters long but its German translation is 51 characters long.

• A list of items included in a retail package omits a crucial component.

• An advertising text translated for Sweden refers to special offers available only in Germany.

• An incorrect format for currency is used for a German text, with a period (.) instead of a comma (,) as a thousands separator.

• Specifications called for 4 cm inside margins, but 2.5 cm margins were used instead.

• Markup is used incorrectly, resulting in incorrect formatting.

• A text in France uses feet and inches and Fahrenheit temperatures.

• While the informational content of a text is correct, it is presented in a mechanically defective fashion.

• A segment has three sets of paired formatting tags at the end, after the final full stop (.).

• A chapter heading is not listed in a Table of Contents.

• An HTML file is missing an <img> tag, so no graphic is shown.

• A source segment has a set of italic tags, but the target text does not have any tags.

• A source text states that a medicine should not be administered in doses greater than 200 mg, but the translation states that it should not be administered in doses less than 200 mg.

• The term piano action should be used but piano mechanism is used instead.

• A French advertising text uses anglicisms that are forbidden for print texts by the Academie française specifications.

• A text may not include colons or forward- or back-slashes, which might cause confusion with path names on some computer systems, but it contains these characters.

• A text uses the term “Acme TM200" instead of the mandated “Acme TM2000®”.

• A database of legal terms mandates that the English term contract be translated as Auftrag in German, but the more common Vertrag was used.

• The source text specifies that a part is 124 mm long but the target text specifies that it is 147 mm long.

• A German text has 123,456 instead of the locale-appropriate 123.456.

• A paragraph present in the source is missing in the translation

• A quality process checks for errors generated from speech-to-text generated during conference interpretation. Because this error type is highly specific to the specific situation, it is not included in any predefined issue type elsewhere.

• This category should be used only for any issue type that cannot be mapped to one of the issue types listed above. If an issue type can be considered a more granular example of an existing type, it should be categorized as that type, possibly with a custom extension if the additional granularity is needed.

• A document is formatted incorrectly (e.g., it should have been set up for a print layout but instead is set up for an online presentation.

• A Hungarian text contains the phrase Tele van a hocipőd?, which has been translated as “Are your snow boots full?” rather than with the idiomatic meaning of “Feeling overwhelmed?”.

• There is a page break between a figure and its caption.

• A table of contents refers to page numbers from the source document that do not apply to the translated text.

• The first line of body paragraphs should be indented 4 mm, but some paragraphs were indented 25 mm instead.

• A text reads “Read these instructions careful” instead of “Read these instructions carefully.”

• The regular expression ["'”’][,\.;] (i.e., a quote mark followed by a comma, full stop, or semicolon) is defined as not allowed for a project but a text contains the string ”, (closing quote followed by a comma).

• A text refers to Figure 1, but Figure 1 appears six pages after the point where it was referred to.

• A document describing a procedure to restart a diesel generator omits a crucial step that must be completed prior to performing additional steps.

• An English text uses a semicolon where a comma should be used.

• A text has opening tags but no closing tags for formatting.

• A French text should use guillemets («») but instead systematically uses German-style quotes („”)

• A legal notice in German uses the informal du instead of the formal Sie.

• A Japanese translation refers to “Apple Computers” as アップルコンピュータ when the English expression should have been left untranslated.

• A listing of items should be in alphabetical order but appears in a random order instead.

• The German word Zustellung is spelled Zustetlugn.

• A text uses a confusing style with long sentences that are difficult to understand.

• Specifications stated that English text was to be formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style, but the text delivered followed the American Psychological Association style guide.

• The text refers to a component as the brake release lever, brake disengagement lever, manual brake release, and manual disengagement.

• A French text translates English e-mail as e-mail but terminology guidelines mandated that courriel be used.
• The English musicological term dog is translated (literally) into German as Hund instead of as Schnarre, as specified in a terminology database.

• A heading should be left-aligned but was centered instead.

• A text written for the U.S. uses a 24-hour time notation rather than AM/PM time.

• The German translation of an English string in a user interface runs off the edge of a dialogue box and cannot be read.

• A text uses punctuation incorrectly.
• A text has an extraneous hard return in the middle of a paragraph.

• A text reads “After completing this, move to the next step,” but there are a number of possible referents for this in the text.

• The following text appears in an English translation of a German automotive manual: “The brake from whe this કુતારો િસ S149235 part numbr,,."

• A source text specifies that an item is 25 centimeters (~10 inches) long, but the source states that it is 25 inches (63.5 cm) long.

• A text reads “King Ludwig of Bavaria (1845–1896 was deposed on account of his supposed madness,” omitting the closing parenthesis around the dates.

• A sentence in a Japanese document translated into English is left in Japanese.

• Part labels in a graphic were left untranslated even though running text was translated

• A refers to dollars as “clams,” when this slang term would be inappropriate.

• The text states that a feature is present on a certain model of automobile when in fact it is not available.

• Verity issues can apply to the source or target text and often emerge during translation when, for example, a factual statement is tru in the source locale but not true in the target locale.

• A document uses a string of space characters instead of tabs
• Extra spaces are added at the start of a string

• Specifications state that at least two lines of a paragraph must appear on a page (if the paragraph is more than one line), but a single line starts a page while two appear on the previous page.

• An English text has becomed instead of became.

• A German text reads “Er hat gesehen den Mann” instead of “Er hat den Mann gesehen.”

• A legal notice should be set in a 9 pt size, but was instead set in 7 pt.