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I wanted to add yet another caution about the concordance method of indexing: it
turns up every instance of the word. This is obnoxious and makes so much
post-processing necessary that it's almost not worth it!
For example, let's say you're indexing a manual for contact management software.
You might have topics like
- adding a contact
- deleting a contact
- changing a contact
- etc.
So you put "contact" in your concordance to pick up page numbers that will turn
into second-level entries (contacts, adding; contacts, deleting; contacts,
changing).
When you run the concordance, you end up with about 500 page numbers for
"contact," because that's how many times the word appears on different pages in
your book. So you still have to go through the page numbers one by one and
determine *which* ones are relevant.
This wrinkle comes up often, even with words you don't think appear too often. I
ended up indexing 6 manuals this way for one project (not my choice!), and it
was *really* inefficient.
Emily Skarzenski
Technical Writer
ICS Deloitte - Chadds Ford, PA
71220 -dot- 341 -at- compuserve -dot- com
