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In my original message, I wrote that I often encounter indexes
>. . . where the writer has included generic verbs as keywords. For
example:
>
>Changing
> Item's Class
> Owner Security
> Report's Schedule
>
>If I'm using this index and I want to know how to change a report's
>schedule, I'm going to look under "report" or "schedule"... but definitely
>not under "changing." . . . .
>
>Before I start chopping, can anyone offer a compelling reason to leave
>those entries intact? Or are they just clutter?
The replies were unanimous: leave those entries in. Don't assume your
readers think the same way you do. As Janice Gelb put it, "it's a fatal
error on the part of an indexer to assume that readers are going to look
things up the way *you* would look them up."
Bill Burns commented that these are gerunds, not verbs (oops), and also
said that gerunds in an index are better used as part of a phrase--e.g.,
"editing reports" instead of "editing." A couple of other people made that
point as well.
Several people described scenarios where users might look under the
gerund--perhaps they think in verbs instead of nouns; perhaps they don't
know the terminology (maybe a case of "I need to change that thing but I
don't remember what this software calls it, so I'll look under
'changing'").
Susan Gallagher offered a memorable anecdote:
>. . . there was the student in WordPerfect class who knew it was
>possible to indent a paragraph from both margins but didn't know how
>because she couldn't find "squishing" anywhere in the index.
>
>And so, yes, I'd leave "changing" in your index -- and add "editing"
>and "revising" and "modifying" ... Because you never know how your
>user is thinking.
Geoff Hart described a multiple-access-points methodology:
>Whereas I'm more likely to look under changing, which only goes to show
that
>different people use indexes differently. The key is to recognize this
fact
>and provide at least two points of access: one under the action, with
>subentries for each noun that action affects, and another under the nouns,
>with the list of verbs that apply to that noun. And just like with nouns,
>verbs should also have synonyms: modifying, editing, revising, etc. for
>changing.
Finally, David Berg and others observed that you never see people
complaining that an index is too comprehensive.
Many thanks, everyone, for your insights. You made me re-examine my
assumptions. Looks like I'd better leave those gerunds in the index after
all.
Christine Anameier
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