re: Why I need an Index

[Doug Cuff <subscribe -at- cuff -dot- ca>]

Kevin,

Many years ago, when you and I were working with Matthew and Mark (but 
not Luke nor John), I got the question, "Why do you need time for an 
index? Surely there's software that will run through everything you've 
written and create a list of each unique word used."

I explained that that the user required a narrowing of entries, not a 
broadening of them. I managed not to scream, "You have no idea what an 
index is nor how to use one!" but that's what I was up against then and 
what you're up against now.

It's best if you keep it simple. Explain to TPTB that even though the UI 
says "Create a user", the reader of the manual make take it into her 
head to look in the index under "adding a user" or any of a number of 
other synonyms. Pretty much anyone can grasp that, no?

There's more a good index than that, but don't waste time going into the 
subtleties.

Doug C.



-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+sbuckley=onlinewriter -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+sbuckley=onlinewriter -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Kevin McGowan
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 10:04 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Why I need an Index


Just thought I'd share this one with the group.

On Friday, I was meeting with my bosses and we were discussing the doc
projects and how I'm progressing. I pointed out that one extra project I
wanted to do was to add Indexes to the current documentation. We have word
files...and none of them have ever been Indexed. i've only been at this job
a month, but I figured this would be well worth the time investment.

The question asked of me was: "Well, what's the point of an Index anyway?
Can't the reader just use Ctrl-F?"

I'm not sure what anyone else would have said...but I just came back with
"I'm going to make some indexes."

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