Tag: book indexing

More Characteristics of Successful Subheadings

In this blog posting, I will discuss more characteristics of successful subheadings, based on an American Society for Indexing webinar given by Fred Leise on September 17, 2014. Top 10 Characteristics  collocation  complete  differentiable  good information scent  audience relevant  concise  points to information  parallel construction  important word first  clear relationship to heading In the last… Continue reading More Characteristics of Successful Subheadings

Characteristics of Successful Subheadings

In this blog posting, I will discuss characteristics of successful subheadings, based on an American Society for Indexing webinar given by Fred Leise on September 17, 2014. Subheadings need to exactly and concisely capture the concept under discussion. You need to identify the concept in the text. Understand how it differs from similar related concepts.… Continue reading Characteristics of Successful Subheadings

Textbook Indexing

Leoni McVey led a session, “To Textbooks, with Love,” on Saturday, June 18, 2016 at the American Society for Indexing/Indexing Society of Canada Annual Conference in Chicago.  She discussed the process of elementary to high school and college textbook indexing, and some ways in which textbooks differ from other types of book indexing.  These books… Continue reading Textbook Indexing

Multiple Entry Points

Multiple Entry Points Variants and Cross-References in Indexes and Thesauri This session was held on Friday, June 17, 2016 at the American Society for Indexing/Indexing Society of Canada Annual Conference in Chicago by Heather Hedden, Senior Vocabulary Editor, and John Magee, Director, Indexing and Vocabulary Services, Gale/Cengage Learning.  Each has worked there since the 1990s… Continue reading Multiple Entry Points

ASI & ISC 2016 Conference in Chicago

The joint American Society for Indexing – Indexing Society of Canada annual conference was held June 16 through 18 in Chicago, Illinois at the Conference Chicago at University Center, which I attended.  The keynote speaker on June 17th was Larry Sweazy, indexer and award-winning author of mystery novels, including See Also Murder, who spoke about… Continue reading ASI & ISC 2016 Conference in Chicago

Common Sense in Indexing

Common sense is another principle that aids in creating better indexes.  Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed.) defines common sense as “the unreflective opinions of ordinary people”; and “sound and prudent but often unsophisticated judgement.”  Common sense should be balanced with the other principles, accuracy, consistency, comprehensiveness, conciseness, readability, reflexivity, audience-sensitivity, and elegance that I have… Continue reading Common Sense in Indexing

Newsletter Article Feature

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

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