Meet a Fellow Indexer: Lisa Ryan The author of this blog, Lisa Ryan, was featured in the Spring 2015 Heartland Chapter Newsletter of the American Society for Indexing (ASI). The link to the article is below. “When Lisa isn’t indexing and abstracting books, she’s writing them,” the article says. “I have written two young adult… Continue reading Newsletter Article Feature
Author: Lisa Ryan
Classification in Indexes
While one purpose of an index is to bring information together, the indexer must take care not to become too obsessed with gathering every bit of related information into larger chunks, a practice known as classification. For example, in a classified index subentries for cattle would be listed under bulls and cows. Instead of classifying… Continue reading Classification in Indexes
Approaches to Indexing the Metatopic
As discussed in the last blog posting, the metatopic will drive the structural development of the index. The problem with the metatopic is the temptation to over-index the entire document under a single overarching topic or to ignore the direct indexing of the metatopic altogether. There are two approaches to indexing the metatopic: the traditional… Continue reading Approaches to Indexing the Metatopic
Metatopic and Index Structure
The metatopic is more than just a characteristic, it is the overarching presence in a book index. According to Webster’s, meta- means more comprehensive than the original term. Often used with a discipline, such as linguistics or mathematics, it highlights a discussion in which the discipline itself is the object of critical examination. The term… Continue reading Metatopic and Index Structure
Elegance in a Quality Scholarly Index
A quality scholarly index must be accurate, consistent, comprehensive, concise, readable, reflexive, audience-sensitive and elegant. In the last few blog postings, I have discussed accuracy, consistency, comprehensiveness, conciseness, readability, reflexivity, and audience-sensitivity. In the final blog posting of this series, I will focus on elegance as a factor in a quality scholarly index. This is… Continue reading Elegance in a Quality Scholarly Index
Audience in a Quality Scholarly Index
A quality scholarly index must be accurate, consistent, comprehensive, concise, readable, reflexive, audience-sensitive and elegant. In the last few blog postings, I have discussed accuracy, consistency, comprehensiveness, conciseness, readability, and reflexivity. In this blog posting, I will focus on audience-sensitivity as a factor in a quality scholarly index. As indexers we often talk about creating… Continue reading Audience in a Quality Scholarly Index
Reflexivity in a Quality Scholarly Index
A quality scholarly index must be accurate, consistent, comprehensive, concise, readable, reflexive, audience-sensitive and elegant. In the last few blog postings, I have discussed accuracy, consistency, comprehensiveness, conciseness, and readability. In this blog posting, I will focus on reflexivity as a factor in a quality scholarly index. What is reflexivity? Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines reflexive… Continue reading Reflexivity in a Quality Scholarly Index
Readability in a Quality Scholarly Index
A quality scholarly index must be accurate, consistent, comprehensive, concise, readable, reflexive, audience-sensitive and elegant. In the last few blog postings, I have discussed accuracy, consistency, comprehensiveness, and conciseness. In this blog posting, I will focus on readability as a factor in a quality scholarly index. What is readability? Webster’s defines “readable” as “able to… Continue reading Readability in a Quality Scholarly Index
Conciseness in a Quality Scholarly Index
A quality scholarly index must be accurate, consistent, comprehensive, concise, readable, reflexive, audience-sensitive and elegant. In the last few blog postings, I have discussed accuracy, consistency and comprehensiveness. In this blog posting, I will focus on conciseness as a factor in a quality scholarly index. Conciseness, defined Webster’s defines “concise” as something “marked by brevity… Continue reading Conciseness in a Quality Scholarly Index
Comprehensiveness in a Quality Scholarly Index
A quality scholarly index must be accurate, consistent, comprehensive, concise, readable, reflexive, audience-sensitive, and elegant. In previous blog postings, I have examined accuracy and consistency in quality scholarly indexes. In this blog posting I will explore comprehensiveness as a factor in quality scholarly indexes. Comprehensiveness, defined Webster’s defines “comprehensive” as (1) “covering completely or broadly;… Continue reading Comprehensiveness in a Quality Scholarly Index