What's in an image?

It's fair to say that COMET creates a lot of images to explain all sorts of scientific concepts. When appropriate, we try to reuse or adapt existing images in different lessons. COMET also translates quite a bit of material, mainly into Spanish and French, but also into other languages, and this means that those same images may be translated, and then be subject to the same type of reuse as the original English version. COMET's liberal copyright policies, which encourage the use of our images for non-commercial purposes, means that many of them are reused by the public as well.

Reuse does present some challenges in terms of tracking versions and variants. It also requires strict quality control. Although COMET strives to maintain high standards of excellence, things do sometimes slip through the cracks. Case in point: this image I recently came across while working on the Spanish version of Met 101: Introduction to the Atmosphere, one of our more recent (and successful) lessons:

Being a translator, I probably approach an image like this from a bit of a different point of view than most people: I read it, I interpret it, and then I decide how to best convey the information it contains. This deep reading sometimes reveals things that other people simply skip over, especially in images. My first reaction upon looking at this one was to note that the Southern Hemisphere polar circle is called the Antarctic Circle, not the “Arctic Circle” as labeled in the original image. And the word “below” seemed out of place.

Now, this is just a terminology error that crept into this lesson at least in part because when sifting through our database to find graphic materials for reuse, the assumption was made that our previously published material was correct. The error itself appears to be a copy and paste operation in which the needed changes were only partially made (Below was changed, but not Antarctica).

Using “above” and “below” to describe a location on the Earth in relation to a parallel line (circle) is clearly imprecise, and here it lead to confusion: if "Above the Arctic Circle" means "North of the Arctic Circle", clearly "Below the [Antarctic] Circle" means North of the Antarctic Circle, not, as intended, South of the Antarctic Circle (that would be above). We actually ended up saying the exact opposite.

The word “below” bothered me for another reason: it seemed culturally inappropriate to use it as a point of reference near a part of the world that has struggled with identifying its referent, even geographically (Australians relish the down under moniker, but in other places that is not necessarily the case. This is at least in part what Uruguayan painter Torres García was saying when he sketched América Invertida (Inverted America): https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaqu%C3%ADn_Torres_Garc%C3%ADa#/media/File:Joaqu%C3%ADn_Torres_Garc%C3%ADa_-_Am%C3%A9rica_Invertida.jpg).

A bit of sleuthing in our database revealed that this image was used in two other lessons, all with the same wording. Each of those lessons was also translated into Spanish, so 6 images are involved. The translations were actually OK, (instead of  “above” and “below” they said the equivalent of “on the other side”, which works, assuming the Equator as point of reference, but I then updated all six images to use North and South instead. In total, about 2 hours of time. Here is the final image, with a couple of conclusions:

1. Using cardinal points is probably more precise and less likely to lead to confusion.

2. When building an image, check and recheck it carefully against any specs that were used to create it. Then someone else should check it.

3. Reusing and translating are opportunities to improve:

a. When translating an image, errors and inaccuracies should be reported, so they can be corrected in the original.

b. When reusing an image, it is probably best to give it a good critical look first, just in case, and any errors and inaccuracies should be corrected.   

For more information and resources about translation, visit the COMET Translation Resource Center