On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Helge Hafting wrote:
The advice I got from my publisher, was to keep few index entries (max 3) per word. If you see concept: 2,3,6,8,12-23, 45, 87-99, 202,204, 484 Are you, as a reader, going to look all those places?
Thanks, Helge. These are all excellent suggestions.
Yes, this is hard. Consider asking your friendly publisher for help, if you have one. Or make a first revision of the index, at least for a few chapters, and have some test readers trying to look up stuff.
I asked my editor at Springer-Verlag. They don't have prepared indexing guidelines (!) and they don't hire a professional indexer. It's all up to me. :-) Guess that's the way publishing works today.
My first attempt at an index tried to use every feature of makeindex. It is a great way to learn the software, but the resulting index was no good. Don't overdo things, in the same way as we don't try to use every available font.
My writing tends to be very concise. I've learned to remove the wordy phrases and simplify. That's why my book is only 229 pages (minus index). So the index will be equally lean. I've used too many poor ones over the years so my focus will be on doing the very best I can at a new endeavor. I read most of the makeindex chapter in TLC2 last evening; still have the bit about xmindy to read.
The only font change will be to use 8/10 in the index rather than the 10/12 in the text body. I'm sure it will be an intersting experience, but your comments help a lot.
Rich
-- Dr. Richard B. Shepard, President Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. (TM) <http://www.appl-ecosys.com> Voice: 503-667-4517 Fax: 503-667-8863
