Best Indexing Practices:
Creating an Index that Says It All!
Pilar Wyman
Introduction
Are you ready to produce top-quality indexes? Many users give up on manuals because of poor indexing, especially with those manuals
that are published only on CD-ROM or on-line. But who wants their Customer Service line to be inundated with telephone calls?
Or, worse yet, who wants their customers to buy a competitor's product because their manual is more user-friendly?
Perhaps you've already tried to write some indexes without previous training, or your team is expected to work together on
an indexing project. This workshop will help you develop user-oriented indexes for all your manuals and publications.
"Professional indexing by a human being has become a quaint concept. At best, you can expect to get full-text searching in an
online document, but that's a poor substitute for a real index.
More often, though, you get a travesty generated by some half-bright indexing program-or no index at all."
-- Stephen Manes, PC World Magazine, June 2001
"Access tools are becoming absolutely critical. If you don't index it, it doesn't exist. It's out there but you can't find it,
so it might as well not be there."
-- Barbara Quint, ASI San Diego Conference, May 1994
This 2-day hands-on introductory workshop covers indexing terms and concepts as well as key skills for producing
quality indexes that work. Whether you want to hyperlink text for Web pages or simply make your manuals and other
publications user-friendly, this workshop will help. Master the art of indexing and win over information-hungry readers and users.
Participants will be expected to participate in interactive group and individual exercises,
moving from basic principles to advanced techniques.
Participants will receive homework at the end of the first day: to review and evaluate sample indexes.
Participants will be expected to return on the second day ready to present an evaluation of an index of their choice.
The latter part of the second day will include usability testing for indexes, as well as in-depth editing.
Participants will be given opportunities on both days to index and receive feedback and guidance.
Using specialized software, participants will be able to see the fully formatted results of their work on the screen, as they progress.
Who Should Attend
Technical writers, editors, indexers, and other communication professionals who are expected to produce or edit indexes.
What You Will Learn
How to identify valid keywords
How to select terms and concepts for inclusion in index entries
How to provide multiple terms to reach all your users
How to add terms that are not already in your documents
How to create and phrase index entries
How to bring together related information
How to cross-reference terms and ideas
How to format your indexes
How to develop a style guide for your indexes
How to edit your indexes for style, content, and space
How to test your indexes for usability
How to produce, manage, and oversee top-quality indexes
How to create usable indexes
Syllabus
>Day 1
Overview
What's an Index?
Why should I bother with an Index?
What makes a good index work?
Group activity: evaluating indexes, part 1
Indexing Terminology
What's an entry? Or a subentry?
What's a heading? A subheading? Will I ever need one?
What's double posting?
What's indexability?
What's vocabulary control?
What are cross-references?
Cross-References
Why should I bother with cross-references?
How do I word them?
When should I use them?
Preliminary Decisions about Indexing
Who are you writing the index for?
What kind of index do I need?
Individual exercise: translating readers' needs into index entries
Preparing an Index
How should I organize the information in my indexes?
How should I present or arrange them?
Individual exercise: alphanumeric order
Beginning Indexing
Group activity: markup and initial indexing of a sample text chapter
Editing Indexes
Group activity: editing our index, part I - we'll do a quick edit of the mini-index we just wrote
Evaluating Indexes
Criteria for award-winning indexes
Tips for evaluating indexes
Group activity: evaluating indexes, part II - we'll evaluate the mini-index we just wrote
Homework
Review workshop materials and handouts
Review and bring in a sample index
Day 2
Homework Review
Sample indexes
Terminology and Proper Forms
Are there any rules for standardizing terminology in an index?
What about plural vs. singular forms?
What about gerunds?
Abbreviations? Acronyms?
Individual exercise: forming terms
Proofing Indexes
What do I look for when I'm reviewing an index and am pressed for time?
Beginning Indexing
Group activity: markup and initial indexing of another sample text chapter
Editing Indexes
What are the benefits of editing an index?
Potential problem areas?
Steps for editing an index
How to follow style requirements
Group activity: editing our index, part II - we'll merge the two mini-indexes we have written,
and then edit the merged index.
Usability Testing of Indexes
What are the criteria for the usability of an index?
How to identify problems in an index
How to evaluate an index for usability
Group activity: testing our index
Q/A Session and Practical Issues
Special considerations for single-sourcing
Special considerations for embedding indexes
Special considerations for XML publication
Current technological trends & publishing methods
Participants are always encouraged to ask questions
Resources
How to Develop an Index Style Guide (half-day workshop)
Introduction
Are you expected to write or compile indexes for the technical documents your company produces?
Is your company outsourcing its indexing? Are you currently working on a project that demands you provide indexes for
the software manuals you oversee?
If you answered yes to any of these questions - whatever media you work in, then you probably need an Index Style Guide.
Everyone has a style guide (of sorts, at least) for his or her publications. But it's rare to have a style guide for indexes,
even in those 'standard' style guides. Or, if you do have one, it's rare that it's actually a comprehensive style guide that works.
When most people first sit down to produce or oversee an index, they often don't know where to start and end up just 'diving in'
and start writing index entries willy-nilly. With no in-house or other style guide, first-time indexers and
first-time index reviewers often have no idea of the key parameters of a quality index, nor what choices they have
in selecting an appropriate style and format. What are the choices? There are many.
How to decide what's best for your documents demands knowledge of what works well for your readers and users.
Before you start indexing, make sure you have a decent style guide to follow, so that you won't be caught wondering what to do
or how to format your entries when the Managing Editor is screaming at your door for those last few files before final production.
This workshop will take you through all of the steps necessary for producing a style guide that best presents
your indexes to your users - current and prospective.
The courseware will include the "Considerations for an Index Style Guide" style sheet and copies of Pilar's PPT slides.
Who Should Attend
Technical writers, team managers, and other communication professionals who are expected to produce,
edit, or oversee indexes. Knowledge of basic indexing is helpful, but not required.
What You Will Learn
Attendees will learn how to revise and create index style guides to make them more effective.
Attendees will learn how to develop comprehensive index style guides that will ensure quality indexes for all their
publications in a variety of media.
The presenter will use both lecture and discussion for in-depth exploration of index styles and for teaching how to
develop index style guides.
We will discuss what to consider before beginning indexing, types of indexes, index format, headings, alphabetization,
cross-references, locators, levels of entry, terminology, and indexable matter.
Discussion will also cover different media: books, manuals, periodicals, Web sites, online documents, embedded texts, etc.
Attendees are encouraged to bring sample publications and current index style guides with them to the workshop.
Syllabus
Before you begin
What issues should you think about before you begin indexing?
Never forget to analyze your audience.
Type of index
What kind of index do your readers want most?
More than one?
What information should you include and exclude?
Indexable Matter
How much of your document are you going to index? All of it?
Should you differentiate some of it? If so, how?
Explanatory notes
Terminology
How should you word concepts?
Gerunds, or no?
What about special terms, or jargon?
Prepositions and linking words?
Levels of Entry
·How dense of an index should you provide your readers?
·How much information is enough?
Format
Indented or run-in? (or, what's that?!)
Turnover lines, continued lines, and guide words
What about electronic format?
Considerations for embedded indexes
Headings
Shouldn't you just use plain text?
Should you consider anything else? What else is there?
And what about subheadings?
Alphabetization
Believe it or not, there is more than one way to sing your ABCs and alphabetize your entries.
Don't forget group heads.
Cross-References
How do you best direct your readers to your preferred terminology?
Where should you put cross-references?
How should you word cross-references? What are targets? What are prefixes?
Punctuation and style?
On-line considerations.
Locators
What format should your locators be? Whether embedded or stand-alone,
there are many options.
On-line considerations.
Q/A Session and Review of Participants' Style Guides
Attendees are always encouraged to ask questions
How can you improve your existing style guides?
If we have time, we'll review sample style guides and discuss how we can make them
work better for our users.
Remember: A manual without an index is like a road that goes nowhere!
Testing Indexes for Usability (half-day workshop)
Introduction
Do your readers complain that they can't easily find information in your manuals?
Are you having trouble affecting consistent language in your documents and indexes?
Or with using the terminology of your readers and users? Do you need to keep the 'useful/frustrating' ratio as high as possible?
If you answered, "Yes!" to any of these questions then you are read to start running usability tests on your indexes.
Usability testing should begin immediately upon the writing of your documents.
There are several points in the life cycle of an index when usability testing is effective.
The best persons for assessing the quality of your indexes are the readers or users of your manuals and their indexes.
Your readers are the 'end users' of your manuals.
Some tech writers, however, assume that the better written their documents, the better written their indexes, naturally.
This is not necessarily the case. You need to ensure your users find the information they want when they want it.
This can be especially tricky with electronic documentation.
"The inclusion of an index is, of course, not enough in itself. It must be a good index."
-- The London Times, 8/15/1957.
Your users - even the savvy ones - read only the parts of your manuals they use.
They rely on your table of contents, index or site map, and even free-text search to guide them to those parts.
If your users cannot find the information they want they will not use your documentation, and your product will lose credibility.
Many users perceive the index as the fastest path to the information they want.
Testing your indexes will ensure top-quality access to your manuals - and that your users will use and buy your manuals.
This workshop will give you hands-on practice in several techniques for usability testing of indexes, electronic and paper both.
Who Should Attend
Team managers, technical writers, editors, indexers, and other communication professionals who are
expected to produce or edit indexes.
What You Will Learn
How to perform usability tests on your indexes
Techniques for testing your indexes
How to review for form and accuracy
How to spot test your own indexes
How to set up testing by real users
How to set up testing by experienced or expert users
How to make your indexes as usable and useful as possible
Syllabus
Benefits of Usability Testing for Indexes
Quality Indexes - what are they anyway?
Enhancing perceptions of usability
Enhancing actual usability
Using indexes as editing tools
Modularity and collaborative processes
Indexes as Interfaces
Indexes as interfaces for your manuals
How to let your index interface work for you and your users
Criteria for Usability
What are the criteria for the usability of an index?
How to tell the difference between good indexes and bad indexes
How to identify problems in an index
Group exercise: evaluating sample indexes
Testing Indexes
How to evaluate an index for usability
How to evaluate for structure and format
How to evaluate for content
Testing for Usability
On-the-spot or JIT (just-in-time) testing
Sampling
Questions to ask for successful tests
Group exercise: usability testing for potential sample indexes
Who Does the Testing
Testing with real users
Testing with expert users
Who's your audience?
How to write your own tests
Group exercise: test questions for potential sample indexes
Applications
How to determine recommendations for improving your indexes
Q/A Session and Practical Issues
Attendees are always encouraged to ask questions
Resources
Testimonials - Workshop Participants
"Dynamic! Exciting! Informative.
"More than lived up to my expectations!"
The best [workshop] I have attended
"Good hands-on approach"
"I found the course to be extremely instructive, enlightening, educational and
useful. I hope to be able to live up to my own expectations of what I
learned, and create usable, high-quality indexes"
"Extremely useful!"
"An extremely valuable workshop. Lots of important information for new indexers.
Great discussions among experienced indexers about debatable topics, examples,
special cases, etc."
"Excellent. Exactly what I needed."
"Excellent workshop! I learned a lot more than I expected."
"A lively and interesting presentation."
"Well done."
"Excellent, excellent information."
"I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed your presentation at ASI last week.
"I am a relatively new indexer (less than a year) and while I had put together a
style
check-off sheet based on the one in the back of Nancy Mulany's book,
your presentation made it clear
that I have a lot more things to think about.
I really like going to presentations where I learn something-and I certainly did from yours.
Thanks."
"Thank you for your patience and your guidance."
"Thank you for all your advice and tips on concepts and readers' needs."
"Thank you for pointing me in the right direction!"
"Thanks again for your help and encouragement."
"Thank you for your careful tutelage."
"Thank you for your excellent instruction and your willingness to answer questions at
last week's seminar.
You are obviously very knowledgeable but never unapproachable
or intimidating, and that is so encouraging to those of us just starting out!"
Testimonials - Clients
You did a fantastic job on the indexing! I stand in awe of your talents.
-- Charles G. Cogan, author of Charles de Gaulle: A Brief Biography with Documents
Pilar is doing an excellent job with the indexing. We've talked at length.
She really knows what she's doing.
-- Steven Bratman, author of Mosby's Handbook of Drug-Herb and Drug-Supplement
Interactions and Mosby's Handbook of
Herbs and Supplements
You have done a great job with the index and ... your work has clearly enhanced both the
appearance
and the quality of the book. I would not hesitate to trust your work should we
ever be immersed in the
same project again, nor will I hesitate to recommend you, should
I meet others who are seeking an indexer.
-- Jeff Chuska, author of Aristotle's Best Regime: A Reading of 'Politics' VII.1-10
Once again you've been great -- I can't tell you how much I appreciate the help
you give on the W.B.P. projects.
Thanks so much.
-- Dawn Leland, The Washington Book Publishers
You do a fine job. I tell colleagues: Get Wyman!
-- Stuart Palmer, author of The Universities Today
About Pilar Wyman
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An accomplished indexer, editor, and index expert, L. Pilar Wyman has been involved in indexing since the fall of 1983.
She has been writing indexes for books, manuals, journals, and multimedia products since 1990 and has written over 600 indexes.
Her areas of specialty include health care, technology, and maritime studies.
Her excellent instruction in indexing has included presentations and workshops on Testing Indexes for Quality and
Usability, Editing Indexes, Index Style Guides, and more.
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In addition to occasional workshops and presentations, Pilar is the editor of Key Words, the bulletin of the
American Society of Indexers (ASI), and a member of the indexing faculty for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Graduate School Correspondence Program for which she teaches Basic and Applied Indexing courses.
She is also a member of the Society for Technical Communication (STC), a founding member of the STC Indexing SIG,
one of the original co-editors of the award-winning A to Z: The Newsletter of STC's Indexing SIG, and a past judge for
the Washington, DC chapter annual publications competition.
She has held various local and national ASI positions, including chair of the Washington, DC chapter; founding member of
the Science and Medicine special interest group; founding member and chair of the national Web site committee;
national board member and national secretary; and chair of the Wilson Award committee.
Having collected all sorts of index style sheets and having had to deal with editors and authors who don't know
what they want in their indexes, Pilar has recently set upon herself the task of helping editors and others define
their index style guides.
Pilar lives in Annapolis, Maryland where she also works part-time as an Assistant Librarian at her children's school.
Publications
Key Words, bulletin of the American Society of Indexers (ASI)
"Can User Manuals Be Saved?" (letter), PC World
The Capital Indexer, newsletter of the Washington, DC chapter of ASI
Indexing Specialties: Medicine, Editor (Medford: Information Today, Inc.)
A to Z: The Newsletter of STC's Indexing SIG
"Indexers Add Value, Too." Technical Communication
"Frequently Asked Questions About Indexing," with Larry Harrison
(American Society of Indexers and America Online Writers' Club
[Reprinted in Starting an Indexing Business, 3rd ed., Medford: Information Today, Inc., 1998]
Workshops and Presentations
ADC Telecommunications (Israel)
Northrop Grumman
EEI Communications
Lightscape (ECI Telecom - Israel)
Paradigm Geophysical Ltd (Israel)
Publishing & Communications program, University of Virginia
Society for Technical Communication annual conferences
American Society of Indexers annual conferences
Washington, DC chapter, American Society of Indexers
Massachusetts chapter, American Society of Indexers
Partial List of Satisfied Clients (indexing, editing & consulting)
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ABC-CLIO |
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Elsevier |
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ADC Telecommunications Israel |
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Institute for International Economics (IIE) |
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AIA Press |
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International Parliamntery Union (Unión Interparlamentaria) |
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American Geriatrics Society |
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International Reading Association |
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American Health Consultants |
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Jones and Bartlett |
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American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) |
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Lippinciott Williams & Wilkins |
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American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) |
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Paradigm Geophysical Israel |
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American Pharmacists Association |
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The Resume Place, Inc. |
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Aspen Publishers |
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Smithsonian Institution |
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Blackwell Publishing |
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Thomson Nelson |
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Bottom Line Books |
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Union Communication Services |
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Paul H. Books Publishing |
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U.S. Naval Institute Press |
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Cadmus Professional Communications |
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United States Postal Service |
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Delmar Publishers |
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Wiley Liss, Inc. |
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ECI Telecom (Lightscape) Israel |
Important note
Participants may not videotape or record the course. All courseware is the sole property of the course participant.
It may not to be reproduced in any format, electronic or print, without prior written agreement of both
the instructor and organizer.
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