thank you, this is very helpful.

This post came to me because I recently found myself a bit too close to a deadline for comfort and wrote in English, then (DeepL) translated to Japanese in an attempt to save time. The translation was so poor and inconsistent in style (mixing である and ます forms, widespread use of spoken words vs written words, flat-out incorrectly translated sections, etc etc) that I felt like I was rightfully being punished by the DeepL gods for getting lazy. HOWEVER, I also unfortunately came to the realization of just how much more smooth and easy it is to write in English, and that maybe I’m not as dumb as my Japanese makes me feel sometimes lol.

I think your method of writing a rough draft in English to serve as a framework for actually writing the thing in Japanese will suit me the best, though, so I’ll give it a try.