Reading for fine indexing
There are many modes of reading books: acquiring information; studying
to memorize exam subjects; taking pleasure in craftily contrived
literature; escaping in lighter fiction; skim-reading for particular
passages or references. Proofreaders read word by word, watching
for errors or cross-checking to ensure copies are identical; reviewers
critically assess strengths and weaknesses; actors memorize and
interpret; young children painstakingly plod. People about to index
books read them at least three times, in three different ways unlike
any others.
I speak of the indexing of narrative texts, not technical ones -
histories, biographies, and other printed accounts of human life
and works - a species of indexing coming to be known as 'narrative
indexing' (or perhaps 'fine indexing,' as opposed to applied or
technological?).
ENJOYING A GOOD READ
The first time indexers read the text in hand, it is straight through,
with unbroken concentration, to get to know the whole of the material
on which they will work - as a potter does with clay. They need
a clear, overall comprehension of the whole work. For this reason,
indexers really should be supplied with all the parts of the volume
that will help to give this full insight - those prelims, illustrations,
maps, notes, and other appendages that are often withheld from us
as 'they aren't available yet, and won't need to be indexed.' Included
in the index, perhaps not - but included in and contributing to
the indexer's understanding, they should be.
Two further advantages derive from indexers' first reading the
pages through untouched by human hand, pencil, or highlighter. We
see how fully each character and theme will be developed, so know
which will need many subheads to divide them, with each reference
specified; and know that however minor and negligible the early
appearances of some characters and themes may seem, they will later
loom large and the first glimpses need to be retrievable. The second
advantage of full first reading is inoculatory, so that we are not
in danger of being distracted from our work later by sheer interest
in the development of the text.
ANALYSIS AND ANNOTATION
Once we have seen the text steadily and whole, we proceed to the
entry-making reading. This is a more disjointed journey through
the text, reducing it to its component parts and strands - not merely
name or capital-letter spotting. In deciding which elements to make
index entries for, we are not extracting selected terms and leaving
an unindexed mass, but reducing the entire text to denser units,
with only the vaguest, most general passages not included under
some broader heading.
We may underline or highlight our selected terms, or write in the
margins those we have devised, or subheads we have added. This helps
us to find the references again at later stages, but breaks the
rhythm and makes the work even more fragmented, as we read a bit,
mark the text, and make the index entry on our cards or slips or
computer screen. The simplest texts, or most technical, or most
closely subheaded, may have all the terms needed in the index already
there, so we need only spot and copy, for instance, in a handbook
on primary education: classroom, maths, textbooks, curriculum.
Indexing a biographical account of a war-torn childhood, though,
would be more complex. We would list the names of all places and
people mentioned - the central character, members of his or her
family, neighbours -- and know from our preliminary reading which
of these would eventually amass too many references to be left undifferentiated,
so we add subheads, 'childhood,' 'in Silesia,' 'during World War
II,' as seems appropriate in each case. Some broader topics, too,
will need to be listed - 'Silesia,' 'Children,' 'Evacuation,' 'Food
rationing,' perhaps; even abstract concepts not named on the page,
such as 'Courage,' 'Loyalty,' 'Fear,' 'Patriotism.' We watch and
list those characters and events in the foreground, while noting
also the minor characters who remain constantly or recurrently in
the background, as well as broad, overall, possibly implied but
unstated topics and themes. We focus on one paragraph at a time
to see what features in it, while keeping in mind the unit of the
chapter and the relation of all its elements to the whole book.
And meanwhile ..., we must keep noting, and meanwhile ... We are
analysing and documenting all human life and relationships at several
levels - assuredly, a complex business.
As we work through a book in this second reading our lists grow
ever longer: both the overall, single list that will form the ultimate
index, and the subsidiary ones for each major character and theme,
to be integrated into the larger. As characters and topics recur
after their first entry, we pick up their cards or recall their
entries in our computer file to add to them. We may add a new page
number to others, or add a new subhead, or scan the whole entry
so far to see whether the new mention should be subsumed under an
existing subhead. My lists for major characters come to look more
and more like rough jottings for an essay.
This entry-making reading is disjointed in several ways. Not only
is our manner of reading and working at this stage fragmented; we
are consciously unravelling the carefully composed text. We are
trying to understand the author's mind in order to undo his or her
work of synthesis.
EXPRESSION AND ORDER
Having reduced the text to discrete elements, we must reunite and
assemble them in index order, editing and arranging in our third
reading or readings. The overall sorting process is simple, alphabetical,
whether performed by card shuffling or computer program. There are
niceties as to word-by-word or letter-by-letter arrangement, how
to treat hyphens, symbols, numbers, Mac, Mc, and St; as for these,
in the United Kingdom the British Standards Institution's Recommendations
will take care of them for us.(1) The crucial questions in fine
indexing at this point are in what terms to express - encapsulate
- the events of the book, and how to arrange the subheads in the
long entries.
For the terms used in main headings - usually proper nouns - indexers
can simply copy the text. Subheads, though, are usually our own,
supplied by us as précis of the passages. Recording/presenting/interpreting
indicates attitude, and indexers must ensure that the attitudes
implied in the index accord with those of the text. We must choose
to use 'Terrorists' or 'Freedom fighters,' 'Crowd' or 'Mob,' 'Street
riot' or 'Protest,' 'Refugees' or 'Illegal immigrants.' We must
try to find terms indicating passionate relationships outside marriage
that are not censorious (not easy, this). The wording of subheads
must convey attitude - as shown by a nicely contrasting pair in
the index to Elizabeth Longford's 1976 biography, Byron:
Byron, George Gordon, 6th Lord: ... his courtship and marriage,
60-79
Byron, Annabella, née Milbanke, wife of B. ... vicissitudes
of her marriage, 71-7
The term vicissitudes does not occur in the text.
The order in which to arrange subheads in narrative indexing is
a highly vexed point. The development of the text is usually chronological.
As we work through the book, adding entry after entry, the result,
untampered with, will be in order of occurrence in the narrative
- fairly chronological sequence, perhaps with glitches when the
first chapter looks forward to the whole, or when there are flashbacks,
or when developments in the life of one person are told only at
the point at which they affect a more important one. But order of
entry is indisputably the easiest order in which to leave each block
of subheads, and has a certain justifying logic. Its results have
sometimes been scarifyingly castigated, as when Bernard Levin devoted
an entire article to 'the full, almost heroic awfulness' of the
index to Ian Ker's biography of Cardinal Newman (Clarendon Press,
1988), complaining particulary that 'the hundreds of references
(under the entry for the main charcter) are not in alphabetical
order at all, but only in the order in which they appear in the
book.(2)
The course advocated by Levin, alphabetical arrangement of subheads,
has certain apparent advantages. As this will almost certainly be
the arrangement of the main headings, there is an elegant consistency
in carrying the same principle through to the subheads. Also, computers
can manage the entire operation this way - in fact, this is the
only way in which they can arrange subheads automatically, except
for page-number order (by first page number in the group only).
How tempting to leave it to the computer, arguing this the preferred
method anyway!
While alphabetical arrangement of subheads is highly suitable for
many types of index, for narrative indexing it has two major drawbacks.
First, it can result in absurd variance from both chronology and
logic: Brown, William: death; divorce; education, marriage; youth.
Second, though it may appear that alphabetical order makes it easy
to find what you seek because you know exactly where to look, this
is true only if you know the term under which the sought item will
be entered. Under what letter would you seek reference to someone's
cheerful disposition? kindness to friends? encouragement of the
young? interest in collecting gemstones and porcelain? recurrent
attacks of gout? G? Yes, if you knew that gout was the cause of
the character's frequent suffering. If not, you might try S for
suffering, or I for ill health, or H for health, or give up.
THIRD TIME MULTIPLE
I choose a fourth way to arrange subheads in narrative indexes,
requiring more work than alphabetical, chronological, or page-number
order, and not possible to delegate to a computer. For long entries,
I prefer logical grouping of subheads, perhaps into paragraphs headed
'Family,' 'Character,' 'Career,' 'Relationships,' 'Letters,' 'Works,'
as appropriate. Within these sections, entries appear as sub-subheads,
suitably arranged: chronologically within 'Career'; alphabetically
for relationships, recipients of letters, books written by the character.
But each long entry represents a single strand through the book
that must be traced, when that entry is edited, back through the
whole work, in the search for the overall pattern of the references
to the one person.
Reading the book thus repeatedly and selectively in the third group
of readings, one is working in the way described by A. S. Byatt
as that of A-level literature study: 'One was required to discuss
the function of characters in the plot, and ... what extra individuality
they had, what intrinsic nature ... The other thing ... was trace
recurrent images.(3)
Tracing one major character and theme after another singly through
a book to finalize its index entry certainly does remind me vividly
of student days, preparing for exams in literature. The same process
is described by Thomas Hardy in his diary entry for June 1882: 'As
in looking at a carpet, by following one colour a certain pattern
is suggested, by following another colour, another; so in life the
seer should watch that pattern amid general things which his idiosyncracy
moves him to observe, and describe that alone.'
This concentrated collocation of references by the indexer is likely
to discover inconsistencies and omissions in the text that escape
notice through the production process until this stage. Only the
indexer will see that a character is Ann or Miss Phillips on page
26, Anne or Miss Philips on 206; ask whether Paul in chapter 1,
Mr Anstey in chapter 10, and Paul Anstey later are the same man;
ask for certain missing forenames to complete name entries, drawing
attention to the fact that the full names should really have been
given to start with. This third group of indexer's readings functions
also as a supplementary proofreading.
If a book is good, I think its index should pay it the compliment
of reflecting its attitude, its ideas, and their associations. Each
long entry should form a coherent whole faithfully conveying the
tenor of the text. Two famous examples of narrative index entries
that do this come from R.C. Latham's 1983 index to Pepys's diary,
and F.A. Pottle's of 1950 to Boswell's London Journal.The
terms chosen for the subheads are most felicitous; the arrangement
is perfect. Even Levin would hardly call to have them rearranged
alphabetically.
All the criteria of good indexes that seem most important to me
-- faithfully maintaining the attitudes of the text in the language
used; correspondence of importance in the text with space allotted
in the index; the fittest arrangement of subheads to form a coherent
whole under each long entry -- must derive from a close, sensitive
reading of the text. Authors, know that your indexers, usually unacknowledged
and disregarded, are often your closest readers.
References
1 Recommendations for Preparing Indexes to Books, Periodicals,
and Other Documents (British Standards Institution BS3700, 1988)
2 Bernard Levin, 'Don't come to me for a reference,' The Times,
10 Nov. 1989
3 A.S. Byatt, The Virgin in theGarden (Chatto and Windus,
1978)
4 R. C. Latham and W. Matthews eds, The Diary of Samuel Pepys,
vol. ii, Index (Bell and Hyman, 1983)
5 James Boswell, London Journal, ed. F.A. Pottle (Heinemann;
McGraw-Hill, 1950)
-- by Hazel K. Bell in Scholarly Publishing Vol. 23 No.2,
January 1992, 115-121