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Subject:RE: To Index of not to Index From:"Miriam Lottner" <miriam -at- tech-tav -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 4 May 2004 20:32:39 +0400
Hi Dan,
We have many clients in similar fields to yours and your readers and our
readers are probably of the same types and with similar needs.
While you and I might think that your TOC (which of course includes
everything including H4 or H5) is plenty, index users are generally in the
middle of a task or procedure and need to quickly look up a specific
concept, idea or value in your documentation suite. If your documents are as
long I think they are, your readers/documentation users probably don't know
how to source the information they need exactly as you chunked your book in
the TOC. This is where a good index becomes an invaluable tool.
We never turn out a book without an index and our reader reviews are always
in the 95-98% percentile for usability/ease of use. Of course there are
reasons for those results, not just our indexing!
There are automated tools of course, and some people take shortcuts of just
indexing the headings (IMHO somewhat worthless as you just end of up with an
alphabetical TOC) but there is also a serious set of standards for
professional and academic indexing. A good place to start is to
buy/find/borrow a copy of the stand alone Indexing section of the Chicago
Manual of Style. (indexing chapter and batteries sold separately). You don't
need to read the part about index cards, you do need the theory of how to
use them, if this concept is entirely new to you.
>From my experience, good indices are generally 3-5% of a book. Meaning, if
your book is 100 pages long, it deserves an index of 3-5 pages.
I sincerely hope this helps. Good luck with your project.
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