Oh, boy! You’ve finished your nonfiction book, and it’s been set in type, copy-edited, and proofed. You have the proof copy in your hand. Nice design, no typos, pages all in order, and everything. Now it needs an index. The publisher wants you to hire someone at your expense to index it.
But you know your book and the subject matter better than anyone else. You can do this.
You’ve seen some of those books that have been indexed by computer with minimal brain-work or by a stranger with little knowledge of your subject matter. Sometimes you’ll find a reference you want some information about, you turn to that page, and there’s no information at all! Just a passing use of the subject word. Not helpful.
It takes intelligence, care, and time to do a good index. You’re smarter than the computer.
The first one I did was a collection of magazine articles on one broad subject. Not too hard: title of article, subject of article, author or authors of article. In alphabetical order. (I know, and you know, items that begin with an article such as A, An, or The are alphabetized by the second word, and the article is put at the end of the item separated by a comma.)
Did the author write more than one article? Add them under their name. Was the subject in more than one issue of the magazine? Find them all and add the titles of the articles as subheads under the subject line.
Of course, where to find it was more than just a page number. It needed volume and issue as well.
Then my coauthor and I indexed our book of Florida nature for young people. We did it with 3×5 cards, sometimes called – well, whaddaya know? – index cards! We went through the book page by page, underlining what we thought should be in the index and writing each new topic on a card.
What would a kid want to find in this Florida nature book? Birds and animals needed to be indexed by their common names, their proper names, and, if we used it, their scientific names.
We cross-indexed: Garter Snake (see also Snakes). Under Snakes (see also Reptiles). Under Reptiles (see also Alligators, Crocodiles, Lizards, Snakes, Turtles).
Under each item we added subheadings where needed, e.g.: Bald Eagle had many pages listed, but we made sure each page actually said something about a Bald Eagle, plus subheads: beaks, in Everglades, identifying, in migration, national bird, scientific classification – each one in alphabetical order with the page number(s).
Subheads can be listed alphabetically according to the first word, or in order of its occurrence in the book.
I find an index is much easier to read if each subhead and its page number are on a separate line, rather than run-on, especially if the index is printed in itsy-bitsy type, but run-on style saves space if an index is long.
And why direct a reader to a different entry without any page numbers? Cabbage palm (see Sabal palm). Just give ’em the page numbers in both places, unless one of them has several subheads.
If an entry included an illustration, we italicized the page number.
All of this information was written on the index cards, and then, and then — the information went into the computer. Here the computer can be a big help, because it can sort the main headings alphabetically, and the subheads, too. Capitalize the first word of each main entry, but subheads are not capitalized.
Print out your index and proof it carefully. Double-check every page number. After it is typeset, check it again in case anything was moved to another page in making corrections.
Many nonfiction books will need a much more detailed index than any of mine did. The Chicago Manual of Style has 49 pages of instructions on how to make an index! Some need an index of illustrations or maps, or an index of people, or a glossary of terms. In the kind of material I read and write, some authors separate scientific names and common names into separate indexes.
But a lot of it is common sense. Think about what you would want to find if you were reading your book instead of writing it, and make it as easy as possible to find it.
Making a good index that will help a reader navigate your book takes thought and care, but it is a most important addition to it. Do it well.
Ann Henry
Very helpful. Thank you, Peg.