Technical Writing – 3 Golden Rules of Indexing

Table of Contents

Introduction

Indexing is the process of compiling and sorting all the pages of a book, magazine or periodical.

The indexer is responsible for creating an alphabetical list of all the topics covered in the text. The reader can then use it to find specific information in the text more easily by looking up words that are important to them.

Indexers are also responsible for adding cross-references to other related subjects, when appropriate.

3 Golden Rules

When you are indexing a document, that is, creating an Index for a document, make sure you observe the following three golden rules for maximum user satisfaction:

Rule 1 of Indexing

Limit your Index to a maximum of THREE indented levels.

Human mind starts losing track of the nestled groupings once you cross over into the fourth level and beyond. It helps a great deal if every level has its own styling. For example, the first level could be in BOLD letters, the second level in normal PLAIN fonts, and the third in plain ITALIC fonts. I’d recommend to use the same font family and not switch to different fonts in between indentation levels.

Rule 2 of Indexing

Always start your indexed words with LOWER CASE letters, unless it is an acronym.

Lower case letters is easier for the human eye to read. But all acronyms should be in all caps. It is great practice to repeat every acronym also in its open form, starting each word with UPPER CASE letter. For example, repeat “ACS 115” also as “American Cancer Society 115”, but not as “american cancer society 115”, etc.

Rule 3 of Indexing

Make sure all important phrases are CROSS INDEXED, cross-referenced, under their respective letters.

For example, repeat “space shuttle” also as “shuttle, space.” In this case both are under the letter S. Repeat “welfare state” as “state, welfare” under the letters W and S, respectively. Do the extra work if you want your users find what they are looking for easily. Cross-referenced index entries will prevent the users from thinking. And a user that can go through a document, book or manual without thinking is a happy user.

Conclusion

Indexing is the process of adding keywords to a text in order to make it more searchable.

Creating an index is the process of adding keywords to a text in order to make it more searchable.

Indexers are responsible for making sure that the content they index is relevant and up-to-date. Indexers also need to know what words are synonyms or near-synonyms for each other, so they can choose the right keyword when there are multiple possibilities.

The indexer will then add these chosen keywords into the metadata which is located in the document’s header as well as into its body where appropriate.