So, I won another indexing award.

A couple of weeks ago the American Society for Indexing (ASI) announced that I won the ASI Indexing Award, in the scholarly/technical category, for my index for Dialectics of the Big Bang and the Absolute Existence of the Multiverse, by Gregory Phipps (University of Alberta Press, 2024). 

I am delighted and honored. It is a privilege to win.

I also have to admit the announcement caught me by surprise. I knew it was coming, as I had been informed earlier so the press and I could provide statements for the official announcement, but I did not know when the announcement would be made. As it happened, that was quite a busy day and I didn’t get around to checking my email until the afternoon, and so was taken aback by all of the congratulatory emails. 

So thank you. My thanks to ASI and the judges for the award and to everyone who took the time to write a note. It means a lot to have such wonderful colleagues. 

I also want to thank the University of Alberta Press, specifically Cathie Crooks and Duncan Turner. The U of A Press is unusual for a university press in that they always hire indexers directly. This award would not have happened without their support and encouragement.

I first encountered the U of A Press when I moved to Edmonton ten years ago. I contacted the press and Mary Loy Roy, the then-production editor, kindly invited me over for tea and a tour of the office. We chatted about indexing and she hired me a few months later for a project. 

I’ve continued to work with the U of A Press since then, now usually working with Duncan, the current production editor, and also sometimes with Cathie, the associate director. It is due to their prompting and encouragement that I submitted the Dialectics of the Big Bang index to the ASI Indexing Award. I would’t have otherwise as philosophy is not my strong suit. But they asked, and I agreed this index was the best candidate out of the three possible U of A Press indexes I could have submitted—and the coolest subject, if I may say so—and so here we are. 

So thank you, Cathie and Duncan, for all of your support over the years. It is an honor to work with a press that cares so much about indexes and for fostering good relationships with their freelancers.

I also want to thank the author, Gregory Phipps, for his kind congratulations. As I mentioned, the U of A Press hires directly and any queries I have for the author usually go through Duncan. So I haven’t been in contact with Gregory, but I am thankful he wrote such a fascinating book, I appreciate his trust in having Duncan ask me to write the index, and I am grateful that Gregory is delighted with the index as well.

Thoughts on Indexing Dialectics of the Big Bang

Before I close, I also want to go over three aspects of writing this index. The judges very kindly described the index as appearing “effortless.” I am glad that that was the impression, as I think well-written indexes should be easy to access and navigate. Writing the actual index was anything but.

Dialectics of the Big Bang and the Absolute Existence of the Multiverse is a complicated interdisciplinary book, combining philosophy and science. Philosophy is one of those subjects I struggle to wrap my head around, and so I usually turn down philosophical texts. But the addition of the Big Bang and multiverse proved too tempting and I talked myself into accepting this book anyway, thinking maybe the science aspect would somehow make the book easier to index?

Famous last words.  

I still somehow got through to the end. It is a relief to have confirmation from the judges that the index worked out. 

So, what were some of the challenges writing this index and how did I piece it all together?

Delineating What is What

This book covers a lot. On the philosophy side, the book focuses on Hegel and five different dialectics, such as being and nothing, finite and the infinite, and space and time. Other concepts are also discussed, such as being, consciousness, and determinate content. On the science side, the Big Bang is important, obviously. The first second of the Big Bang is also broken down into six epochs, including the Planck epoch, grand unification epoch, and inflationary epoch. The book also discuses elementary particles, such as bosons, electrons, and fermions, as well as the four fundamental forces: electromagnetism, gravity, and strong and weak nuclear forces. On top of all of that is the multiverse, which required four separate arrays. 

So the first challenge is simply to understand what all is in the book, what needs to go into the index, and how all these elements relate to each other. For a book this complicated, mind mapping is your friend. When finished writing the rough draft, or even partway through the rough draft, take a step back, identify the various components, and see how they link together. 

Opposition and Interdependence

The next challenge was figuring out what could be indexed together and what needed to be kept apart. I am mainly thinking here of the dialectics, which I decided to keep together. For example, the index contains main headings for “being and nothing,” “finite and the infinite,” and “repulsion and attraction,” with cross-references from the second term. The alternative would be to have separate arrays for each element of the dialectic, with subheadings and locators double-posted under each, but that seemed unnecessarily complicated. Each dialectic is generally discussed together, as a single concept, and I thought the index should reflect that. Keeping the dialectics together also meant less double-posting and gave readers a single place to search. Following a similar rationale, I also created a single array for “absolute existence (absolute existence of the multiverse).”

That said, I also needed to be careful to not conflate related yet distinct concepts. So, the index also contains arrays for “being,” “finitude,” and “nothingness,” for example, which are discussed in and of themselves, distinct from the dialectics 

The index is complicated regardless. But I was still looking for ways to make the index less complicated. Deciding what could be kept together, such as the dialectics, was one way to keep the index simple, so to speak, by having a single place for each concept or term. Having clear distinctions between similar concepts was another way to keep the index “simple.” No unnecessary complexity.

Relationships

Being such an interdisciplinary book, relationships are everywhere and need to be reflected in the index. This is partly done through cross-references, but mostly through double-posting. To give a couple of examples, “consciousness” is both a main heading and appears as a subheading in eighteen other arrays. The dialectic “finite and the infinite” appears as a subheading in fifteen other arrays. The result is an index that is an interconnected web. Readers should be able to go to any array and find everything they need to know about that topic, including how that term relates to other terms.

All of that double-posting takes time and thought. See mind mapping to clarify relationships. I also recommend double-posting early, while creating the entries, instead of waiting to double-post at the end. I know some indexers save double-posting for later. While that can work if the number of double-posts are limited, if double-posts are extensive, I think trying to do them all at once retroactively could be overwhelming and confusing. I think it is easier to plan ahead, create them early so that the emerging index structure is visible, and then check and adjust as needed while editing the index.

 

Dialectics of the Big Bang was fascinating to read, and a real puzzle to piece the index together. My takeaway is that while difficult books are certainly slow and challenging to index, writing a good index is possible if I can identify all of the moving pieces and figure out a good plan. Understanding the book is half the equation, while understanding how an index works is the other half. If you hone your craft, you can index just about anything. (Though I think I’ll still pass on most philosophy books, thank you.)