Poll: The typical or average size of the jobs I do is: Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "The typical or average size of the jobs I do is:".
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| | | | neilmac
Spain
Local time: 08:04
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Option missing | Sep 14, 2023 |
What about "N/A" (Not Applicable)?
All I could say is that my jobs tend to be no longer than 10,000 words, and are frequently 500 words or less.
As for average, well, shmaverage. I'm no mathematician.
| | | | | There is no average | Sep 14, 2023 |
Over 60 years of translating, I have seen all sizes.
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There’s nothing typical about the jobs I do, it can go from 3/4 words (the minimum I did) to over 250,000 words (the maximum I did)…
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Dan Lucas 
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:04
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Ways and means | Sep 14, 2023 |
The median is probably a more representative number, as at certain times of the year I get many smaller jobs. Since the start of 2022 that has been around 2,400 characters for me. The average (mean) has been 3,400 characters over the same period, due to skewing effect of small numbers of larger jobs.
Regards,
Dan
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My average per job depends to some extent on what I consider a "job" to be. In the past it was any number of files that I was expected to deliver together. Now I tend to make each "job" what I do in a month for each contact or client, so the numbers have tended to rise. My average words per job for each year vary from 1873 to 3595 but the above needs to be borne in mind:
2006 = 2211
2007 = 2121
2008 = 2022
2009 = 3140
2010 = 3134
2011 = 2954
2012... See more My average per job depends to some extent on what I consider a "job" to be. In the past it was any number of files that I was expected to deliver together. Now I tend to make each "job" what I do in a month for each contact or client, so the numbers have tended to rise. My average words per job for each year vary from 1873 to 3595 but the above needs to be borne in mind:
2006 = 2211
2007 = 2121
2008 = 2022
2009 = 3140
2010 = 3134
2011 = 2954
2012 = 2631
2013 = 2202
2014 = 1873
2015 = 2336
2016 = 2316
2017 = 1916
2018 = 2735
2019 = 3482
2020 = 3535
2021 = 3137
2022 = 3567
2023 = 3595
I don't know if this is of any interest, but it does answer the question. My smallest job was just a few words, my largest about 140k.
As Dan Lucas says, however, the median number would be more indicative but I'd need to create a new formula to work that one out, so I'll stick to the question and pretend I didn't see his comment 
EDIT:
It wasn't difficult to write a formula, so I changed my mind. Here are my median lengths:
YEAR AVERAGE MEDIAN
2006 = 2211 - 763
2007 = 2121 - 625
2008 = 2022 - 770
2009 = 3140 - 812
2010 = 3134 - 1209
2011 = 2954 - 782
2012 = 2631 - 1018
2013 = 2202 - 929
2014 = 1873 - 655
2015 = 2336 - 756
2016 = 2316 - 941
2017 = 1916 - 695
2018 = 2735 - 1049
2019 = 3482 - 1469
2020 = 3535 - 1970
2021 = 3137 - 1779
2022 = 3567 - 1931
2023 = 3595 - 1605
[Edited at 2023-09-15 07:46 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Use of language | Sep 15, 2023 |
As other posters have implied, this question is unanswerable, because "typical" and "average" mean two quite different things.
For example, consider this sequence (imagine all numbers represent thousands): 1, 2, 1, 2, 24, 6, 2, 2
Here, the typical size (i.e. the most common) is 2, but the average is 5. Quite different.
So which is the poll asking about? The typical job size, or the average? It would be nice for us (and better for the reputation of ProZ) if ... See more As other posters have implied, this question is unanswerable, because "typical" and "average" mean two quite different things.
For example, consider this sequence (imagine all numbers represent thousands): 1, 2, 1, 2, 24, 6, 2, 2
Here, the typical size (i.e. the most common) is 2, but the average is 5. Quite different.
So which is the poll asking about? The typical job size, or the average? It would be nice for us (and better for the reputation of ProZ) if the poll questions were free of such solecisms. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | number crunching | Sep 15, 2023 |
Dan Lucas wrote:
The median is probably a more representative number, as at certain times of the year I get many smaller jobs. Since the start of 2022 that has been around 2,400 characters for me. The average (mean) has been 3,400 characters over the same period, due to skewing effect of small numbers of larger jobs.
Regards,
Dan
I just crunched the numbers, for my own interest:
The median is just 300 words (I did a lot of small jobs in the early days). That means that half of the jobs are below 300 words.
The arithmetric average is 1100 words.
But half of my income comes from jobs that are larger than 3000 words.
[Edited at 2023-09-15 04:54 GMT]
[Edited at 2023-09-15 07:10 GMT]
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