Tag: alphabetizing

When articles, conjunctions, or prepositions appear as the first term in a main heading, the phrase is probably a title of a book, an article, a play, or a painting.  If the first term is an article, such as A or The, the term is not alphabetized.  For example, the book title A Tale of… Continue reading Special Topics on Alphabetizing in Indexes

Letter-by-Letter or Word-by-Word? The two principal modes of alphabetizing – or sorting – indexes are the letter-by-letter and the word-by-word systems.  Indexers must decide which mode to use before indexing begins.  Dictionaries are arranged letter-by-letter, while library catalogs are arranged word-by-word.  Most university presses, such as Chicago University Press, and many other publishers have traditionally preferred… Continue reading Alphabetizing in Indexes