Article
September 14, 2016
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by Stephen

Book Review: Indexing Tactics & Tidbits, by Janet Perlman

indexing-tactics-and-tidbits-7.gifMy review of Indexing Tactics & Tidbits, by Janet Perlman (Information Today, Inc., 2016). The review first appeared in the ISC/SCI Bulletin, vol. 38, no. 2, Summer 2016. This issue of the Bulletin is currently only available to ISC/SCI members, in the Members Area, but will soon be freely available, along with all of the other back issues, here.

Indexing Tactics & Tidbits is well named, and the title reflects both its strengths and weaknesses.

Following the lead of Hans Wellisch’s classic, Indexing from A to Z (which I have not read), Perlman’s book is organized by topic in alphabetical order, starting with Aboutness and ending with Work Methods and Workflow. The format invites browsing, and I enjoyed picking up the book, opening it at random, and seeing where the topics and internal cross-references took me. The structure also lends itself well to easily searching for and focusing on specific topics that you may want to find. Information is clearly labeled by headings and subheadings, and sections are at most a few pages long.

The breadth of information covered is impressive, with several sections covering the business and techniques of indexing, including getting started, negotiations, and bidding on projects. I was glad to see sections on quality and elegance in indexes—elegance being an intriguing approach to a document that otherwise needs to be precise and readily useable. There is an interesting discussion of mashups, and, being Canadian, I was glad to see that the Professional Societies section included societies beyond ASI (though society newsletters, including the ISC Bulletin, did not make the cut under The Literature of Indexing). I also found Perlman’s discussion of her indexing workflow, as well as her interactions with clients, to be informative, as hearing from others often is. There is much in this book that justifies the Tactics in the title, which I define as a reasonably extensive discussion of the topic.

On the downside, a number of entries fall under Tidbits, which seems to me to provide insufficient discussion. Of course, a short entry alone does not indicate lack of information. I thought the four brief paragraphs discussing certification to be adequate, though some expansion on the Institute of Certified Indexers could be helpful. History of Indexing and Marketing, however, should be expanded on, and the information under Function Words could be better integrated with Prepositions or the entries for And and On.

The Tidbits feed into another aspect of the book, which is that Perlman extensively refers the reader to additional resources. In a way, the book functions as an index to the pre-existing literature, and the reader is perhaps best served by having the other resources on hand too. I think this approach is fine so long as Perlman does provide adequate discussion of the topic, along with the references. Where it falls short is when Perlman primarily refers.

I would recommend this book as a great introduction to indexing. It might be particularly useful for someone who is unsure if indexing is for them, as the format is accessible and the information presented in bite-sized chunks. For the committed or experienced indexer, there is good food-for-thought here too. Browsing might lead to rethinking an aspect of your business or craft—I am already rethinking my use of prepositions. Then again, if you already have a well-stocked indexing library, the topics covered here might be repetitious, and your existing library sufficient.

Article
August 31, 2016
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by Stephen

Plotter vs. Pantser? The Indexer Edition

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If you read my previous post on genre, I’d understand if you think that this is another post inspired by the When Words Collide writing festival that I attended mid-August. This post, however, was actually inspired by Larry Sweazy’s keynote address at the joint ASI/ISC indexing conference I attended in June. Summer is a great time for conferences.

You fiction writers may already be familiar with the terms plotter and pantser. They refer to how an author approaches the process of writing a story. Do you first plot out the story before writing, or do you start with a blank page and write by the seat of your pants? Larry Sweazy, who is both an established indexer and an award-winning fiction writer, adds a twist to this concept by applying it to indexing.

Pantsing an index is to read through the text and simultaneously create and input the terms into your indexing software, without prior reading or planning. To plot would be to read through the text, either the whole text or by chapter or section, mark it up so that you have an idea of what terms you want to use, and then create the terms in your indexing software based on your notes and rereading of the text.

There are excellent indexers who fall on both sides of this divide (just as there are excellent writers who swear by both). Pantsers say that they can always revise and finalize the index later, during the editing phase. Plotters take the view that they produce a better index, and have less editing to do, if they can first understand the text.

My take? I think a lot comes down to experience, though certainly work styles and how you process information are important too. When I first started to index, I would plot out the index, chapter by chapter. Eventually I started to pants. Part of my decision to change my indexing approach was from learning from other indexers that this was an actual, viable option. Time was also a factor. I was getting more work, feeling crunched, and wondered if pantsing would speed me up. The biggest factor for me, though, at least in terms of successfully transitioning to pantsing, was experience. I had indexed enough books to have a rough template in mind that I could use when indexing blind. I was confident that making a decision, and then revisiting that decision during the editing phase, was sufficient for creating an excellent index. Plotting added an extra step, in that I would make a decision while marking up the text, and then revisit that decision twice, while inputting the entry into the index, and again while editing. I decided that extra step wasn’t necessary.

Still, I sometimes do get a particularly difficult book to index, and for those books pantsing is not as effective. For those I may decide that I do need to do some plotting. Perhaps not pre-reading the entire book, but certain key sections that illuminate the whole.

I have also increased the number of notes I make for myself while I input the terms, which I skim when I am ready to begin editing. These are to remind me of potential trouble spots that I will want to revisit during the editing phase, or these notes serve as brainstorming of alternative terms, or of similar terms I am seeing in the index and want to mull over for which is best to use. I also sometimes use mind maps to help me organize and understand what I am reading. I find visualizing the relationships between terms to be a quick and effective way to understand the structure of the text and hence the index.

For the pantser, I think plotting can still play a role in certain circumstances. The trick is to recognize those circumstances, and adapt your indexing strategy accordingly.

Now as a writer, do I plot or pants? I have to admit that I usually plot. I can often get away with pantsing short works of nonfiction, but fiction is another story. Right now I am experimenting with different plotting techniques, seeing what works best for me. I wonder if this will change too as I gain experience.

And Larry Sweazy? A pantser all the way, in both writing and indexing. That man has it figured out, or, better said, doesn’t, but knows how to finish the project regardless.

 

Article
August 1, 2016
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by Stephen

Surfing the Schedule, and Those Damn Easy Projects

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It has been a busy year.

I had projects waiting for me when I got home from Christmas holidays, and the work hasn’t stopped since.

It has been pretty tiring at times too. Working evenings and weekends? Check. Working on two indexes at once? Check. Have projects that take longer to finish that anticipated? Check. Have books arrive either earlier or later than scheduled? Check again.

Book publishing is definitely dynamic. Each book has its own production schedule. Each production schedule involves multiple editors, proofreaders, designers, and even, sometimes, an indexer, not to mention the author. Each editor/proofreader/designer/indexer is themselves most likely working on multiple projects at once, or at least has the next project lined up for when the current one is finished. The system is ripe for schedule slippage, for deadlines overlapping, for projects banging into the next, you eyeing the calendar and the clock trying like hell to put this baby to bed so that you can get on to the next project, with its own increasingly looming deadline.

It gets chaotic. With multiple schedules piling up, I feel like I am surfing, trying to stay ahead of the wave, reach the shore in one smooth movement, before heading back out to sea to catch the next wave. What can happen instead, though, is that I lose my balance, the wave knocks me off my board, I get buffeted around in the surf for a while before I can surface and breathe again. At that point either the next wave has already passed me by or it is right on top of me.

So, schedules. They are important.

I have been learning this anew these last seven months, the busiest winter and spring I’ve had so far as a freelancer. But it is important to note, however, that there are two types of schedules at play. The first, which I have already mentioned, is the production schedule that each book is on. This I have very little control over. If the schedule doesn’t suit me, I can ask my client if the schedule can be changed. Sometimes the client is able to accommodate me and sometimes they can’t, at which point either I change my schedule or another freelancer gets the project.

The second schedule, which I do have more control over, is my personal daily/weekly/monthly work schedule. This kind of schedule is important too, if I am going to efficiently and effectively complete the indexing and proofreading projects that I have accepted. It has been this type of schedule that I’ve been learning that I really need to tighten up.

Specifically, here, I want to write about scheduling in what I call the easy books. If you work in publishing, you probably know the type. For me they are usually trade books, sometimes coffee table style, heavily illustrated. The subject matter is often engaging, and written in a fairly light manner. It usually isn’t long, maybe 200-250 pages, and the index won’t be long either.

I really enjoy these books. I enjoy many of the dense, academic books I get to index too, but after a dense book these short, trade books are just so fun and refreshing in comparison. They can be a good pick-me-up after slogging through a heavy 400 page tome.

I figure I can usually index the easy books in 10-15 hours, sometimes less. Surely I can find time for 10-15 hours over the course of a couple of weeks, right?

That is what I thought too until I started to notice a pattern over these last few months. When schedules got really tight, I found that I was focusing on the most difficult indexes first, because those where the deadlines I was most scared of. I wasn’t putting the time I needed into the easy books until the last minute, usually, at which point it was a mad scramble to finish the index. The “fun” indexes weren’t so funny anymore. They became a source of stress, feeling like I had taken on more work than I should have.

Was it really too much work, though, or was it a scheduling problem? A month ago I had another of these easy indexes to complete, and I decided to focus on my schedule. I still had a larger, more complex scholarly book to index as well, which I knew was going to take the bulk of my time and attention. But instead of spending all of my time on the scholarly book, I decided to take the first hour of work every morning and devote it to the easy book. It wasn’t much, an hour. I indexed maybe 20-30 pages in that time. But as I discovered, it was enough.

I chose to index the easy book in the morning so that I wouldn’t be tempted in the late afternoon or evening to push it off because I was tired from the hard book. Because I wasn’t indexing at the last minute I actually got to enjoy the easy book, which was a large part of why I had accepted it in the first place. I still had the whole rest of the day to work on the more difficult book. When it came time to edit the easier index, I still scheduled a full day to do that as I find it easier to edit in one long go than to break it up with another project, but scheduling one day is a whole lot easier than trying to squeeze in multiple days at the last minute. In the end, both the easy index and the more difficult index were finished on time and fairly stress-free. Success!

Is there anything else about my personal work schedule that I can change? Probably. I’ll take another look and perhaps write about this again. I think that work is more enjoyable and productive in a relatively stress-free environment, and schedules are certainly part of that equation.

In the meantime, what scheduling tips do you have for managing tight deadlines and multiple projects? I would love to hear.

Article
June 26, 2015
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by Stephen

Team Indexing: The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver

1550175335Writing an index is usually a solitary activity, but when working in-house for Harbour Publishing I had the opportunity, to 2011, to lead a small team of indexers.

The book was The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver, a coffee table book clocking in at nearly 600 pages. Chuck Davis, the renowned local Vancouver historian, had been unable to finish the project before he died, and Harbour took on the challenge of pulling together a large team–over forty people–to finish the work.

By the time I was assigned to the index, two other people had already been hired to create a word list of all of the terms to be included in the index. My job, and that of my co-indexers, was to search the PDF proofs for those terms and fill in the page numbers. Normally I wouldn’t suggest this approach because there is a lot, such as concepts and references, that the search function doesn’t pick up, but in this case, as the book consists of short bits of trivia and sidebars, it worked alright.

As the lead indexer, I assigned chunks of this word list to my fellow indexers (there were three of us at this point), and we set about searching for these terms. The final Word document containing the index was over a hundred pages long. As completed sections came in, I would assign a new section and check the work that I had received for consistency and accuracy. When all of the terms had been searched, I proofread the entire index, checking spelling, alphabetization, and the correct ordering of locators, as we weren’t using dedicated indexing software which automates the formatting.

If I had the chance to do this again, I would make sure that we all had dedicated software. Creating the index in Word isn’t as slow, I assume, as using actual index cards, but it is still a lot of extra work. Instead of making a word list, I would have also discussed with my co-indexers, prior to starting, our strategy for what to index and how, and then divided the book by chapter among us. As sections came in I would have still checked for accuracy and consistency, but then let the software handle the formatting when adding these sections to the master copy.

Still, having such a hands-on approach to writing an index was an excellent opportunity to be grounded in the small details that ultimately make an index work.  It was a great apprenticeship, and I’m proud of the work. It was also neat to contribute some of the captions, sidebars, and text as well.