Indexing Guidelines
Common Indexing Problems
The following articles, are examples of just how indexing errors can occur,
and quite often, be simply fixed.
Please select a problem.
Using a heading as both an adjective and a noun.
Imagine index entries like the following:
child
Aboriginal
behaviour
This is considered poor indexing, and is the most common mistake made by
editors and indexers. Aesthetically the entries look pleasing with a single main
heading, and all the other terms listed as subheadings. The problem is that the
word child has been used as a noun in the first instance, but an adjective in
the second.
In the first case the complete heading in reality would appear as: child,
Aboriginal. This style of entry is known as an inverted heading, a format
familiar to librarians, but has become less fashionable amongst indexers,
although it is not wrong. The preferred format for entries is known as direct
entry, which for our example would appear as: Aboriginal child.
In the second case the heading should read as: child behaviour. Where a
concept or entity can stand by itself, child behaviour in this instance, this is
the correct format to use. So for our example our final index entries should
appear as follows:
child, Aboriginal
child behaviour
Confusion over the use of see and see also references.
See references lead a user from an unused heading to a used heading,
ie. from a term they have looked up to a term used by you, the indexer, as the
entry point., eg.
yachting see sailing
See also references lead a user to other headings in the index where
further relevant information may be found, eg.
nurse leaders see also nursing leadership
Forgetting to provide alternative access points for the user to a topic.
In a manual which came with my fax machine I needed to look up how to change
the time to allow for daylight saving. There was no entry under ‘time’, but
after a bit of searching I found an index entry under ‘s’ for ‘setting date and
time’. Similarly there was no entry under ‘d’ for ‘date’. It is important to
think what a user might realistically look up.
Lack of understanding between heading and subheading, leading to
ambiguity.
Every subheading must bear a logical and usually grammatical relationship to
the main heading, eg.
diabetes
causes of
prevalence of
Entries are read from subheading to main heading, so in this case the entry
reads ‘causes of diabetes’, and similarly ‘prevalence of diabetes’. The
preposition ‘of’ could have been left out, as it could be assumed by the user.
So index entries like the following are fine:
diabetes
causes
prevalence
However, in the following example leaving out a preposition or conjunction in
the subheading would result in ambiguity.
computers
management
Failing to understand whom the audience is (ie: that the work is designed
for).
A geneticist, as a professional, would look up Drosophila melanogaster
instead of fruit flies in an index, but in a children’s book, only use platypus,
and not show your erudite knowledge and index under Ornithorhynchus.
Problems with filing/alphabetical order.
File symbols first, followed by numbers, then Roman alphabetical letters, eg.
@ work
$s and cents
10 deadly sins in the office
1984 (George Orwell)
aardvarks
artichokes
Should you index the passing mention?
Passing mentions, ie. very brief mentions of a topic or subject are usually
not indexed. For example, in a book about the life of a swagman which says he
stopped for a meal next to an unnamed creek, indexing the passing mentions of
meals or creeks is unwarranted.
Problem of initial articles in titles.
In indexing, initial articles are usually inverted and placed at the end of
the title, separated by a comma. This style is purely for aesthetics in the
index. For example, the title: The Story of Art would have an index entry
as follows:
Story of Art, The
Problem of too many undifferentiated page numbers.
Do not use more than 6-8 locators (page numbers) after a main heading before
making subdivisions of the topic into subheadings, eg.
railways 24, 48-51, 79, 144-8, 159, 221-6, 242, 276, 292-4, 312 , 349-53, 357
This is poor indexing, and would be much improved with subheadings, eg.
railways 24, 159, 242, 276, 312, 357
black coal
problems 144-8
diesel 349-53
interstate rivalry
292-4
narrow gauge 221-6
steam 48-51, 79