Two Saturdays ago I co-presented a webinar with François Trahan, for the Indexing Society of Canada/Société canadienne d’indexation (ISC/SCI). The topic was best practices. We drew upon our experience serving together on the ISC/SCI Awards Committee, which administers the Ewart-Daveluy Award. We had an excellent turnout. Many thanks if you joined us. I want to briefly summarize what we discussed because best practices are applicable to all of us.
Our starting point was that indexers generally know how to write good indexes. Yet when under the pressure of a deadline, or when dealing with complex or difficult subject matter, mistakes happen. We saw this a lot when reviewing submissions to the Ewart-Daveluy Award, in which indexes were often well-written, and yet also contained what seemed to be simple mistakes, such as inconsistencies with cross-references and double-posts, for example. (Poor structure was another issue we saw from time to time, which suggests more than a simple mistake, but I’m not going to dive deep into structure today.)
In planning the webinar, François and I wanted to help indexers do a better job to incorporate the best practices that they already know. To that end, I spoke on setting yourself up for success by creating a style sheet for your indexing practice, and François spoke on quality control.
Creating an Indexing Style Sheet
By creating a style sheet, I mean documenting your decisions. These can be smaller decisions, such as when to use and how to phrase glosses, or how to index certain types of names, or when to add subheadings. As you index, pay attention to your preferences and decisions, and write them down.
These can also be larger decisions, such as a preferred structure. If you commonly index biographies or cookbooks, for example, document the structure(s) that you prefer to use. Note the conditions under which these structures work or don’t work. Pay attention to common constraints or elements which need to be indexed. The next time you index a biography or cookbook, refer back to your notes. Use a structure that you’ve already outlined. You do not need to reinvent every index.
Writing an index is difficult, juggling analysis of the text, all of the formatting and structuring of the index, possible space constraints, and a deadline. Having decisions documented ahead of time, and being able to begin the index with a plan in place, can go a long way to ensure that best practices are incorporated from the start, rather than being something that you are trying to remember after the fact. You probably already know what to do; the goal now is to turn best practices into good habits.
The caveat is that every book is different. The decisions that you’ve made before may work ninety percent of the time, but a project will likely come around for which they do not work. It is important to be aware of when standardized practices don’t work, and to be able to pivot when necessary. Still, it is worth documenting your decisions for those ninety percent of projects for which the decisions are applicable.
Quality Control
When speaking about quality control, François mostly spoke about using checklists to ensure that the index is properly edited. Having a checklist for common issues means that you are less likely to forget something.
A checklist can draw upon best practices, as a reminder to check various elements of the index. A checklist can also reflect the specific requirements of a client. This suggests that while it is a good idea to have a general checklist that can be applied to all projects, it can also be a good idea to customize the checklist for each project, taking into account specific requirements and needs. A checklist should also reflect your particular weaknesses. Perhaps you know that you tend to type quickly and introduce spelling errors and misplaced punctuation, and so remind yourself to always run spellcheck.
Know Yourself
In all of this, whether documenting your decisions or quality control, it is important to understand how you yourself index. François and I tried not to be too prescriptive. We all work differently, and a process that works for me may not work for you. But regardless of how we work, we can all find ways to better incorporate best practices.
Pay attention to how you work. Try to identify your weak spots; we all have them, including me. See if you can fine-tune your process to incorporate elements of planning ahead—having decisions and options prepared ahead of time—and of quality control—knowing what it is you need to check to ensure that issues are caught. If you can do this, you should have an easier time writing better indexes.