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bifurcation

English translation: cutting corners

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)

French term or phrase:	bifurcation
English translation:	cutting corners
Entered by:	kashew

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01:10 Nov 3, 2009

French to English translations [PRO]
Social Sciences - General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters

French term or phrase: bifurcation

I'm confused by the following sentence; I haven't seen "bifurcation" used in this way before:

Les contraintes temporelles peuvent conduire le chercheur à faire certaines bifurcations et à fragiliser la qualité de son échantillon.

faire certaines bifurcations = prendre des raccourcis??

John Detre
Canada

cutting corners

Explanation:
Or, "diverging" from strict procedure.

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Note added at 10 hrs (2009-11-03 11:32:09 GMT)
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Or more grammatically correct, "corner-cutting".

Selected response from:

kashew
France
Local time: 05:29

Grading comment

Thanks everyone. All the answers were helpful and I hesitated about which one to take, but I ended up going with "depart from procedure" to express the idea of a shortcut without coming out and saying it, and to keep some of the meaning of "bifurcation." Thanks for putting me on the right track kashew.
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

Summary of answers provided

4 +3

cutting corners

kashew

3 +4

change

Chris Hall

3 +3

short-cuts

Bashiqa

branching

André Vanasse

turnaround

Miranda Joubioux

Answers

5 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +4

change

Explanation:
The time constraints may lead the researcher to make certain changes and weaken the quality of his / her sample.

Source: Collins Robert French Dictionary
bifurcation (fig. = changement) - change.

Chris Hall
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:29
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 4

6 hrs confidence:

peer agreement (net): +3

short-cuts

Explanation:
Because of the time constraints.

Bashiqa
France
Local time: 05:29
Works in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 8

7 hrs confidence:

turnaround

Explanation:
Another possibility.

Miranda Joubioux
France
Local time: 05:29
Works in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 8

1 hr confidence:

branching

Explanation:
Take different routes, different ways.

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Note added at 8 hrs (2009-11-03 09:11:03 GMT)
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Use different approaches, possibly shortcuts, thus jeopardizing the validity of the results.

André Vanasse
South Korea
Local time: 13:29
Works in field
Native speaker of:

French,

English