How to write a good index?

[Jeanne A. E. DeVoto]

At 4:19 PM +0200 5/25/05, Malte Brill wrote:
>Hi list,
>
>I wonder what it takes to write a good index. Any ideas welcome.

In general? One method is:

1. Start with a list of words that occur in the thing to be indexed.

2. Filter out words that don't belong in an index (plurals, words 
like "the" or "and", etc.).

3. Add short phrases (such as "script editor"). Add synonyms that 
don't exist in the thing to be indexed, but which readers might want 
to look up in an index (for example, "code window" for "script 
editor"). This is your list of index terms.

4. Create a list of all the places (pages or topics) where index term exists.

5. For each index term, read each of these places and select the most 
relevant hits for that term, eliminating the ones that don't really 
explain anything about the term.

6. Optionally, divide some index terms into subcategories (such as 
"script editor, opening", "script editor, spellcheck in", "script 
editor, closing", and so on).

1 and 4 can be done automatically. The other steps are 
labor-intensive, though, and cannot be automated unless you are 
willing to accept a poor-quality index. (Poor quality in an index can 
be worse than useless, because it means people give up on the index 
after a few unsuccessful attempts.)
-- 
jeanne a. e. devoto ~ jaed at jaedworks.com
http://www.jaedworks.com