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
Fall is off to a roaring start for me. September was busy. October is so far a little slower, which is good as I am still catching up on projects I didn’t complete in September. And November and December are shaping up to also be full. With a full schedule… Read More »Taming Schedules, Trying to
As you’ve probably noticed, AI is still around, being pushed and integrated into almost everything. I find it interesting talking to friends and colleagues about whether and how they use AI. There are a few instances where it seems genuinely useful, but more often than not it still seems like… Read More »AI and the Nature of Indexing Work
I’ve gotten a few questions recently about increasing speed while indexing, including last week’s Q&A about subheadings. And while these are good questions and we can certainly discuss specific ways to increase speed, I think it is also important to keep in mind the foundations of speed, which I learned… Read More »The Best Lesson I Learned About Speed I Learned from Tree Planting
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
An index is a document that is scanned to find information. It usually spans several pages. But if you had to break an index down into its smallest part, what would that be? An index is not like most books or documents in that it does not contain a narrative.… Read More »The Building Blocks of an Index
Last time I wrote about reading like an indexer and what it is I do and look for when reading a text and writing the rough draft of an index. Today I’d like to reflect on my editing process. A few months ago I started tracking my time when I… Read More »My Index Editing Process
I love subheadings. They add so much to an index, breaking down long strings of locators into smaller chunks, highlighting meaning distinctions, and gathering related entries into lists so readers only need to search in one place. As I discuss in my last reflection, subheadings can also reflect the story… Read More »When Subheadings Are Not So Useful
It is not too often that I have the privilege of indexing an entire series. It is also not every index in which structure plays such a prominent role. I mean, structure—deciding which entries and arrays to create, where to place them within the index, and how they relate to… Read More »Indexing Yellowstone’s Wolves
I found myself thinking last week about the value of making a plan before starting an index. It is something I do as part of my indexing practice. But what do I mean by making a plan? While I discuss elements of making a plan in my book (especially in… Read More »Making a Plan Before Starting an Index, How to