Re: Index entries for glossary terms

["Brierley, Sean" <Brierley -at- QUODATA -dot- COM>]

Hallo:

A good question. I use my discretion on this, which means I'm answering both
"yes" and "no."

If a glossary term is minor and has no major significance, then I do not
index it. Why would this term be there to begin with? Perhaps as a
definition of an acronym that is both defined once in the body text and also
somewhat of an industry standard (I would feel obligated to provide this in
the gloss in case a minority of the audience wanted to know, although I
admit I could address this with a "See" reference in the index).

If a glossary term is important to a topic of great importance, such as a
technical definition about something that occupies several chapters, I would
index it under "something name: definition," where "something name" is the
glossary term. Thus, when reading through the many index entries for
"something name," the reader would find an entry called "definition," which
points to the index.

Typically, indices take me several days to plan and create; they are not a
light task. Also, I can expect that reviewers and SMEs skip the index, even
though I specifically ask for a review of it.

What do y'all think?

Sean
sean -at- quodata -dot- com

>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Ann Howell [mailto:ahowell -at- POOLMAIL -dot- DOLPHINSOFTWARE -dot- COM]

>>>I'm in the process of creating my first big(-ish) index and
>>>I now see why index
>>>writing is a vocation of its own. One quesiton: should I be
>>>creating entries for
>>>terms that appear in the glossary (the glossary directly
>>>precedes the index), or
>>>is that redundant?
>>>
>>>Thanks for any thoughts on this,
>>>
>>>Ann Howell
>>>Dolphin Software Services ULC
>>>http://dolphinsoftware.com
>>>


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