Atlantic Authoring - Indexing, Proofreading, Writing

Indexing Evaluation Checklist

This Indexing Evaluation Checklist was created by the American Society of Indexers to serve as the
model for evaluating indexes.

Reader Appropriateness

Are the indexed terms appropriate for the intended audience? For example: "heart attack" in
a book for the general public, "myocardial infarction" in a book for health professionals;
"Taxus" in a work for botanists or horticulturalists, "Yew" in a work for home gardeners.

Main Headings

Are the main headings relevant to the needs of the reader? Are they pertinent, specific,
comprehensive? Not too general yet not too narrow? Not inane or improbable?

Do main headings have not more than five to seven locators (page references)? If more,
they should be broken down into subheadings.

Subheadings

Are the subheadings useful? In the example below,

(a) the page ranges are extensive
(b) the subheading "problems with Republicans" may be too general

Roosevelt, Franklin
problems with Republicans, 1–32

Are subheadings concise, with the most important word at the beginning? For example, not:

banks
and relationship to Federal Reserve bank

but

banks
Federal Reserve regulation

Unnecessary words and phrases like "concerning"and "relating to" and proliferation of
prepositions and articles should be avoided.

Is the number of subheadings about right? More than one column’s worth is probably too
many. Are subheadings overanalyzed? Could they be combined? For example, could
"dimensions" be substituted for "height," "width," and "length"? Or should some
subheadings become main headings with their own subheadings instead?

Do subheadings have more than five to seven locators? If more, they should either be
broken down into sub-subheadings or be changed to main headings.

Double Postings

For the reader’s convenience, many subheadings should be double posted—that is, they
should exist as main headings too. An example: "Cats: Siamese" and "Siamese cats." Has this
been done? Double postings should, of course, have the same locators. Do they?

Locators (Page References)

Are the locators accurate? Check a sample of entries to see. Spot-check pagination for
nonsense numbers where the hyphen or en dash may be missing, such as 18693 for 186-93.
Check that elision (page ranges such as 186-93) is consistent.

When locators include roman numerals or volume numbers, does the typography make the
usage clear?

Cross-References

Have see and see also cross-references been provided?

A see should direct the reader to a different term expressing the same concept, such as
"Clemens, Samuel. See Twain, Mark" or "aerobics see exercise".

A see also should guide the reader from a complete entry to the related entries for more
and different information. Examples: "Mammals: 81, 85, 105; see also names of individual
mammals" "astronomy 12–14, 56, 68. See also galaxies; planets".

Length and Type

Is the index length adequate for the complexity of the book? An index should be 3–5% of
the pages in the typical nonfiction book, perhaps 5–8% for a history or biography, and
more (15–20%) for reference books.

Is there a need for more than one type of index? For example, in addition to the usual
subject index, perhaps a separate name or place index is called for. If so, is there one?

Format

Is the type large enough to be easily read? Do the index pages look open and not crowded?

Are the main headings and subheadings (and sub-subheadings if any) distinguished from
each other?

Is the organization—whether alphabetical, chronological, or other—accurate, clear, and
consistent?

When an entry’s subheadings "turn a page" that is, are continued from a right-hand page to a
left-hand page, the main heading should be repeated, followed by the word continued in
parentheses. Depending on the size of the pages, continued headings might be appropriate
for continuations from left to right pages, or even from left to right columns. Are they
present?

Preferences for punctuation between main headings and their subheadings and see and see
also cross-references will vary from publisher to publisher. This discussion features several
acceptable variants. The important thing is that the punctuation style be clear to the reader
and consistent. Is it?