Welcome to the last Tuesday of the month. It’s time for another Q&A. Today’s question comes from Clara, who writes: I’ve been learning indexing in my free time (and admittedly have plenty of it these days!) and would love some book recommendations to practice on — ideally titles that already… Read More »Q&A: How Can I Know if My Index is on the Right Track?
I’ve been thinking recently about why I enjoy writing indexes. Put another way, what would I lose if I handed the task over to an AI tool? Counterintuitively, I enjoy indexing because it is difficult. Sure, there are plenty of days I complain about a chapter being too obtuse or… Read More »Why I Enjoy Writing Indexes
Indexing contains a strong subjective streak. For all of the rules and conventions that govern format and term selection, among other elements, there are multiple ways to write an index. Each indexer interprets the text differently, and each indexer has their go-to structures and methods. I’ve been thinking about the… Read More »Embracing the Subjective Side of Indexing
How accurate does an index need to be? Repeating this out loud to myself, it sounds like a trick question. The value of an index is tied, in part, to its accuracy, right? Of course an index needs to be accurate. Considered another way, I don’t expect a human written… Read More »AI Indexes, Accuracy, and Trust
What is structure within an index and is it actually important? I’ve been thinking about this question over the last couple of weeks. There have been parallel discussions on the Indexer’s Discussion Group (IDG) and CindexUsers email lists about AI and indexing, in response to Ben Vagle’s announcement of his… Read More »Intentional Index Structure
Welcome back to the third edition of the monthly Q&A, on the last Tuesday(ish) of every month. Today’s question comes from Kimberly: I’ve been giving each heading a subheading right from the start, with the idea that it might be easier to delete unneeded ones than to go back and… Read More »Q&A: Preemptive Subheadings?
Welcome to this last reflection in the mini-series on the basic elements of an index! Over the last three months I’ve discussed entries and arrays, main headings and subheadings, locators, cross-references, and format. Today I look at sorting. Sorting and format are like twins. They both have to do with… Read More »Sorting: Putting Entries in Order
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been exploring the components of an array—main headings and subheadings, locators, and cross-references. It’s time to now look at how these are all held together. Formatting the index, by which I mean either run-in or indented format, along with punctuation, has to do with… Read More »Format: Pulling the Index Together
My original plan for today was to write about indexing Oxford University Press (OUP) titles, of which I recently indexed two. I will still reflect on OUP, but as I was writing this, I realized that my main issue with OUP’s system is its impact on cognitive load. So partway… Read More »Cognitive Load and Indexing Oxford UP Titles
Welcome back to this mini-series on the basic elements of an index. I’m currently looking at what makes up an entry, which I described as “what this thing is + where to find it.” In my previous post I discussed main headings and subheadings, which form the first part of… Read More »Pointing Readers in the Right Direction