During my formal education as an English and Portuguese language and literature undergraduate major in Brazil, I learned English through traditional methods like timed exams, grammar drills, and textbooks, and was mostly discouraged from using technology. This approach left me feeling inadequate, and I soon internalized that \u201cwriting in English was not for me.\u201d Despite teaching English to Brazilians, I never felt confident in my written pieces in English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything changed when I started volunteering at CAPA, the Academic Publishing Advisory Center\u2014 a writing center in southern Brazil where I acted as a translator and tutor, translating faculty and graduate students\u2019 manuscripts from Portuguese into English. CAPA\u2019s mission extended beyond publishing and internationalizing local research, as narrated by Martinez (2024). It emphasized the social nature of writing within an academic culture that often viewed it as an isolated act. Being a part of CAPA was challenging at first, but as I went through training sessions and as time went by, I started to feel more confident \u2014most of our tutoring sessions addressed the act of writing even in Portuguese. Due to my translator role, I began to question my previous beliefs about writing and technology. Instead of viewing translation as a mere lexical equivalency, I started seeing it as a complex process of meaning-making across texts, modes, and disciplines. This eventually reflected positively beyond my role in the writing center but in my own writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Developing Critical Digital Literacies at the Writing Center\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since there are multiple definitions of digital literacies (Tham et al., 2021) I draw on the Computers and Composition field to define what I mean by \u201ccritical digital literacies.\u201d Thus, I echo Berry et al. (2012)\u2019s understanding of digital literacies in their Transnational Literate Lives in Digital Times<\/em> as simultaneously globalized and localized, as individual and social. I also resonate with  Selber’s definitions of digital literacy, especially “functional” versus “critical” (Selber, 2004). These literacies involve understanding power dynamics, ethics, and socio-cultural impacts of digital technologies. In a world where digital communication is ubiquitous, being digitally literate means more than knowing how to operate technological tools, or what Watkins (2012) would consider tools literacy<\/em>. It means thinking critically about how and why we use these tools and the broader implications of their use, or Watkins\u2019 design literacy<\/em>: \u201ctools literacy is foundational; design literacy is transformational.\u201d (Watkins, 2012, p. 9).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At CAPA, I learned that digital literacy goes beyond technical proficiency to encompass critical engagement with digital tools and platforms, and the meaning we make through the process. That is what I mean by Critical digital literacy in my narrative, and this understanding became the foundation for my development as a translator, as a tutor, and as a researcher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026 as a Translator <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My time at CAPA was a masterclass in collaboration. Working in teams of 2-3 members, we used various platforms to facilitate our translation projects. SmartCAT<\/a>, a Computer-Assisted Translation software, was our go-to software to collaborate in real-time and share files and translation memories for consistency. The platform had its multiple flaws, as any work tool, but it allowed us to think critically, mostly about embedded biases in the suggested translations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our weekly meetings stand out to me as the moments when I grew the most. In our groups, we had to discuss specific translation choices and argue why we believed a certain term or collocation would best serve us in that context. We grappled with our disagreements and tried to research specific disciplinary discourses and rhetorical moves that were common for a specific manuscript. The discomfort of negotiating and not finding an easy answer fascinated me in translation and later, reading about collaborative Multilingual Translation (Gonzales, 2022), I saw most of my concerns and experiences reflected in TPC scholarship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also used AntConc<\/a>, a corpus analysis software, to build glossaries and analyze language patterns; Google Docs<\/a> facilitated real-time comments, edits, and collaboration, and Trello<\/a> helped us organize and assign tasks, set deadlines, and manage our progress. I had to learn (and fail) on the job how to use each of those tools\u2014some of them I use to this day. These experiences allowed me to open my own translation company and collaborate for 4 years with multiple authors before starting my PhD. <\/p>\n\n\n\n