I’ve never indexed a work of fiction before. I once came close, for a novel which was part of someone’s creative dissertation, if I remember correctly, but that fell through. I also don’t often think that I want an index when I read a novel. When reading fiction, I am… Read More »Indexing Fiction: A Proposal for Taiwan Travelogue
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… Read More »Incorporating Indexing Best Practices
Today I want to return to a question I answered a few months ago on finding the appropriate level of granularity in an index. Within that question was the comment, “too many subheadings with the same locator is a red flag.” That comment has stuck with me. It is true… Read More »Repeating Locators Within an Array
I’m currently indexing a history of nuclear reactors. It is about 300,000 words. Meticulously researched and written, with a strong narrative. It is a big book, and it is taking a while to get through. It is also not the only large volume I’ve indexed this year. I feel like… Read More »Indexing Big Books
Welcome back to another Q&A, on the last Tuesday of the month. How are we already at the end of April? Today’s question is about granularity: How should I judge what level of granular information the reader will be looking for? Too many subheadings with the same locator is a… Read More »Q&A: Finding the Right Level of Granularity
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about corralling variants. That reflection dealt with names, of people and organizations. Names can vary, whether through the use of nicknames or shortened versions or through formal name changes. When writing an index, it is important to identify those variants and to somehow… Read More »Parsing Synonymous and Similar Terms
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