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
I’m adding a new Q&A element for my newsletter subscribers. I will respond to a new question on the last Tuesday of every month. To kick off this new Q&A, here is a question about subheadings. To summarize, “How can I become faster and more decisive when writing subheadings? I… Read More »Q&A: How Can I be Faster and More Decisive Writing 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
I am writing today about some decisions that I needed to make on a recent index. In the grand scheme of the index, these decisions only affected a few entries. I am tempted to brush these off as not very important and not worth discussing. Yet much of indexing is… Read More »Paying Attention to Terminology
Ever struggle to find the right term to use in the index? I do. From an indexing standpoint, ideally the vocabulary used in the book is clear and consistent, making it easy to extract terms and phrases to use as main headings and subheadings. Bu not all books are so… Read More »Index Profile: Untangling Terms in Rediscovering the Goodness of Creation