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Subject:RE: Value of Indexes in Short User Guides From:"Chinell, David F \(GE Indust, Security\)" <David -dot- Chinell -at- GE -dot- com> To:"Eddie Hollon" <eddiehollon -at- yahoo -dot- com>, <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 22 Feb 2007 09:54:37 -0500
Eddie:
My favorite view of a tech writer is that he can do everything required to create a finished product. This includes the creation of text, images, and random access tools, like the index. However, the creation of a useful index is much more complicated and difficult than one might guess. It should always be more than an alphabetized list of headings.
I encourage all the writers in my shop to create indexes for any work over 50 pages in length, and am pretty forgiving as to the quality of the finished product, provided that it is workable, and that the writer is constantly striving to improve. (That's pretty much the situation we're all in -- we have some experience and are struggling to improve.) We just can't justify hiring a full-time indexer, or even outsourcing our indexing work.
The 50 page threshold is totally arbitrary. Actually, I think any work that warrants a TOC warrants an index, regardless of page count. I'm sure there are exceptions -- I'm just trying to emphasize that there really isn't a sensible lower limit that can be determined by page count (or topic or word count) alone.
I really like "The Art of Indexing" by Larry S. Bonura, ISBN 0-471-01449-4 as a training and reference text on indexing.
Bear
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+david -dot- chinell=ge -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+david -dot- chinell=ge -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com]On
Behalf Of Eddie Hollon
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 12:06 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Value of Indexes in Short User Guides
Can those of you with experience producing short user guides (e.g., 50-60 page guides for mobile phones) share your opinions on the value of indexes in these documents? I am currently writing style guidelines and am very interested in what other TWs have to say. Many competitor's documents do not include indexes, but I am still in favor of providing the user with an index as a quick means of searching for topics. I would appreciate any and all opinions on the general debate (to index or not to index?) as well as more specific issues, such as levels of detail and whether a noun/noun phrase or topic/action/condition strategy is more useful to readers.
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