Final Chapter

There are many ways to be right.

Martha Osgood

The writing of an index is the telling of someone else's story. We take the author's narrative and create an abbreviated version. As we write, we highlight the characters, name the places, and hint at the plot in the author's prose.

In this book, we have been telling the story of two indexers and our approaches to one text. In our final chapter, we close the story by talking about the comparison aspect of this project, revisiting the indexing principles, and offering a perspective on the collaborative approach to writing this book.

Chapters

Introduction

Audience
How do these indexers' perceptions of the audience influence the development of their indexes?

Analysis
How do these indexers' understandings of the text influence their approaches to creating entries?

Metatopic
How do these indexers' ideas about Fodor's primary topic impact their index structure?

Gathering
How do these indexers collect information and what influenced their decision-making?

Access Routes
How do these indexers develop pathways into the text?

Phrasing
How do these indexers use words and phrases to support the structure of the index?

Consistency
How do these indexers consider and evaluate consistency when implementing the other indexing principles?

Final Chapter
What have we learned from reading about the two indexes and the decision-making behind the entries?

Index
Download a copy of Martha Osgood's index for Inside Indexing.

Acknowledgements