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Topics in Technical Indexing
A Joint Meeting with the Boston Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication (STC)Index Comparison Projects
Presented by Cheryl Landes
Can an indexer's background and subject specialties affect the way he or she indexes content? Indexers with extensive experience in specialized areas decided to find out in this two-part project. In the first phase in 2003, they indexed a technical book. Three years later, they indexed a non technical book, a collection of essays. One technical and one non-technical indexer participated in both phases, and no one saw the other's work until it was completed. Cheryl was the technical indexer in both projects. Cheryl had previously presented on each of the studies separately: the first study on indexing a technical book was presented at the 2003 ASI conference in Vancouver, and the second study of indexing a collection of essays was presented at the 2006 ASI conference in Toronto. At this meeting, Cheryl presented a summary of findings of both studies.
In the first project, an index on a manual for using the software Word, the technical indexer, Cheryl, created somewhat more entries, lines, and page references, than the non-technical indexer, Debra Spidal, despite spending less time on it. More significantly, though, few entries were the same in the two indexers. The indexes varied in their inclusion of software features (buttons, menus, commands, etc.), concepts related to tasks, tasks to be performed by users, cross-references, and exercises. The technical indexer included significantly more gerunds than the non-technical indexer and used many more cross-references. Depth of indexing (number of entries per page) by the technical indexer was only slightly higher. The non-technical indexer, on the other hand, employed more typography in the index, such as to indicate illustrations, keyboard shortcuts, and exercises.
In the second project, the scholarly indexer, Cynthia Landeen, created more entries, but fewer lines and fewer page references than the non-technical indexer. The technical indexer indexed to a greater depth, with more entries per page, but the scholarly indexer created significantly more cross-references. The two indexes did have a number of identical entries, although subentries didn't always match for these. Interestingly enough, the two indexers spent a similar amount of time on this index. This second project also had a third indexer, a new indexer added to see what the different in general experience makes. The new indexer created only a fraction of the number of entries, lines and page references (and also spent less time on it.)
The phase 2 (non-technical index) indexers picked up more similar concepts that the two indexers in phase 1 (technical index). The index layouts were more similar to each other, despite looser guidelines. For overall conclusions, Cheryl stated that an indexer's background and experience can affect how a book is indexers. Both indexing styles and approaches to the text differ. Cheryl is hoping to run a usability test at a university on the essay collection indexes.
Cheryl Landes has more than 15 years of experience as an indexer and a technical writer in several industries: computer software, marine transportation, manufacturing, and the trade press. For the past five years, she has worked as a technical writer for Phoenix Controls Corporation in Acton, MA (and recently has begun working remotely from the Seattle area). She is a senior member of STC, the former manager of the STC Indexing SIG, and the incoming vice president of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the American Society for Indexing (PNW/ASI).