July 9th, 2010 → 2:58 pm @ Michael Ferreira
Information is knowledge, and an index is a compilation of information designed to enhance the knowledge of your reader.
Think of the index as a roadmap for your book. Just as a roadmap gives you directions to reach your destination, an index gives you information in the form of headings, subheadings, and cross-references to answer your questions or help provide knowledge.
A Table of Contents will provide a quick overview of your book; but, an index will identify all important terms, concepts, and ideas and put them in an easy-to-use alphabetical format at the back of the book.
Indexes enhance sales and revenue for books. Readers who are happy with your book are more likely to purchase future editions.
July 9th, 2010 → 2:55 pm @ Michael Ferreira
A professional indexer could be the difference between a high-selling book and a low-selling book. How so?
A professional indexer will work with the author and publisher to create an index that reaches the target audience for your book. By identifying your target audience, the indexer is able to use terms and phrases well suited for the knowledge and experience level of your readers.
A professional indexer uses software specially designed to create indexes. Many word-processing software programs can automatically generate an index. However, this index is usually a string of page references that many times doesn’t help the reader in his or her search. Would you rather have this:
FBI, 3, 8, 24, 35, 42, 45, 60, 128
Or this:
FBI
Cold War and, 42, 45
history of, 3, 8
Hoover’s involvement with, 24, 128
qualifications necessary for joining, 35, 60
A reader who uses the automatically generated index to learn about “joining the FBI” will waste time looking on pages 3, 8, 24, 42, 45, and 128. However, the professionally created index directs them immediately to pages 35 and 60.
Lastly, a professional indexer is available to update your index should you have revisions, deletions, or additions to your text. The dedicated indexing software helps make these corrections and additions a seamless, easily completed task.
June 9th, 2010 → 3:34 pm @ Michael Ferreira
A complete and useful index is not simply a list of words and phrases, but an organized map of the content, including cross-references, grouping of like concepts, and other useful analysis.
The following indexes were written by Ferreira Indexing:
Download sample pages in .pdf format for some of our recent projects:
June 9th, 2010 → 3:23 pm @ Michael Ferreira
An index is an alphabetical arrangement of information that is designed to help readers find information accurately and efficiency. Unlike the Table of Contents (which gives the reader a general overview of the book), the index identifies specific terms, concepts, and elements within the book that the reader cannot easily find if he or she were only to use the Table of Contents.
The index often contains various levels of subheadings. These allow the reader to refine their search from a very general topic to a more specific discussion about that topic. For example, if we wanted to learn more about “Arteries of the Heart,” we could look up the general term “Arteries.” However, a more time-efficient method would be to look up the subheading “arteries” under the discussion of “Heart”:
Heart, 209-235
arteries of, 209, 215, 222
conduction system of, 236, 259
shape of, 89, 102
This refined search has helped us quickly find the information we were searching for rather than reading the entire chapter from pages 209 to 235.
The toughest job for an indexer is knowing what information NOT to include in the index. Most books are filled with thousands and thousands of words. If an indexer is not selective, the index could end up being as large as the book. A good indexer sifts through these thousands and thousands of words to find the terms, concepts, and ideas important to your students, colleagues, and lay audience.