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
Tag: indexing
Introduction to Taxonomies and Thesauri
Heather Hedden, Senior Vocabulary Editor, Indexing and Vocabulary Services for Gale/Cengage Learning led a session on “An Introduction to Taxonomies and Thesauri” on Friday, June 17, 2016 at the American Society for Indexing/Indexing Society of Canada Annual Conference in Chicago. Taxonomies and thesauri are types of controlled vocabularies that include an authoritative, restricted list of… Continue reading Introduction to Taxonomies and Thesauri
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
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