The Qur'an: Which Translation?

A new translation of the Qur'an by a Laleh Bakhtiar, a Muslim woman, has been getting a lot of media attention recently. Here's an excerpt from an article in the NY Times of March 25, 2007:

"Laleh Bakhtiar had already spent two years working on an English translation of the Koran when she came upon Chapter 4, Verse 34.
She nearly dropped the project right then.
The hotly debated verse states that a rebellious woman should first be admonished, then abandoned in bed, and ultimately ''beaten'' -- the most common translation for the Arabic word ''daraba'' -- unless her behavior improves.
''I decided it either has to have a different meaning, or I can't keep translating,'' said Ms. Bakhtiar, an Iranian-American who adopted her father's Islamic faith as an adult and had not dwelled on the verse before. ''I couldn't believe that God would sanction harming another human being except in war.''
.. . . . . . . . . . .
Her eureka moment came on roughly her 10th reading of the Arabic-English Lexicon by Edward William Lane, a 3,064-page volume from the 19th century, she said. Among the six pages of definitions for ''daraba'' was ''to go away.''
''I said to myself, 'Oh, God, that is what the prophet meant,' '' said Ms. Bakhtiar, speaking in the offices of Kazi Publications in Chicago, a mail-order house for Islamic books that is publishing her translation. ''When the prophet had difficulty with his wives, what did he do? He didn't beat anybody, so why would any Muslim do what the prophet did not?''

My one year of Arabic instruction happened more than 20 years ago, so I'm in no position to judge the quality of this translation. I am a little suspicious of someone who translates by scanning a dictionary for a definition that suits their interpretive purposes, but maybe the Times isn't giving us the whole story and her translation decision was a bit more sophisticated than the story's portrayal.

But the other day a student did ask me, "Which translation of the Qur'an do I use in my paper?" What's the most reliable English translation of the Qur'an? Is there any one translation which reputable scholars use when they write about Islam?

One sentence won't suffice for a good answer. For help, take a look at the section on Islam in the Hekman Library Religion and Theology Research Guide.
One helpful perspective on English translations is found in an article by Khaleel Mohammed, "Assessing English Translations of the Qur'an," Middle East Quarterly 12 (2005).