The year 2017 has been another great one for The Savvy Newcomer, and we are glad you have been a part of it. We thought it would be nice to wrap up this year with a recap of what we have been up to with the blog in 2017 and what we are looking forward to in 2018. We hope you enjoy it!

As it has been since the blog’s inception in 2013, The Savvy Newcomer’s mission is to be “ATA’s blog for newbies to translation and interpreting.” To fulfill this mission, we have continued to post once weekly, generally with new content from our own team or guest authors, but also reblogs from other sources. By the end of 2017, we will have posted over 200 individual blog posts on The Savvy Newcomer during our four-plus years together!

Our blog team is comprised of eight members from a variety of countries and backgrounds, and we meet by conference call once per month to discuss upcoming topics and make plans for the blog. Over the years, we have seen the team grow from the founding members (Helen, Daniela, and Jamie) to include additional and vital support (Catherine, David, and Bianca). In 2017, we added two new members to the team: Emily Safrin and Flavia Lima. Both of them have made huge contributions to our efforts and they already feel like family!

The Savvy Newcomer continues to be active on social media, with a strong following on both Facebook and Twitter. We encourage reader interaction on these platforms and have enjoyed sharing the content of other individuals and institutions through these media as well. Our readership on both platforms is impressive, surpassing 700 Facebook followers and 1,400 Twitter followers during 2017.

In 2016, The Savvy Newcomer became part of ATA’s Business Practices Committee, further encouraging us to achieve our goals of providing relevant and useful content and resources to newcomers to the professions of translation and interpreting. We provide reports to the committee as needed, and ATA uses this committee to support us as we seek new and interesting ways to share with you, our readers.

We have had many excellent posts over the years, some of them reaching thousands of individual page views. The three most popular articles posted on The Savvy Newcomer during 2017 were:

1. Study Resources for Translation Certification
2. Questions to Ask Before You Accept a Translation Project
3. Why Pairing up Is a Good Idea, Especially for Freelance Translators!

Readers, you are a diverse bunch! Our blog audience in 2017 came from an astounding 163 different countries. The top three largest audiences for our blog were in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

Just as you may set resolutions for the New Year, we at The Savvy Newcomer have a few goals of our own for 2018:

• Manage a better balance of translation- and interpreting-related posts
• Come up with creative new ways to engage readers and encourage audience interaction
• Reach even more followers who are interested in T&I around the world
• Offer fun new ways for first-time attendees to connect at the annual ATA conference
• Continue to post once a week and meet once a month

It’s your turn, readers! What do you want to see from The Savvy Newcomer in 2018? Do you have any questions we can answer in a blog post? Or perhaps you have a guest post in mind that you would like to write for us. Have you set any resolutions? We would love to hear them!

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