Finding Information in Different Ways

People think about questions or information in different ways. It’s important for an index to provide multiple ways of locating any given piece of information. The following example, from Home Depot’s book entitled Outdoor Projects 1-2-3, shows five ways to locate information about brick steps:

bricks, 162
…
patterns
    …
    for steps, 291
…
stairs, 134–137, 140. See also steps
…
steps, 256–258, 284–292. See also stairs; walks
brick steps, 290–291
cleaning, 298
concrete steps, 288-289
    repairing, 464
laying out 284–285
materials, 298–301
riser/tread ratios, 284
stone steps, 292
timber-and-paver steps, 286–287
timber step, 287
…
tools. See specific tools or projects
…
walks, 256–301. See also steps
…

As a rule of thumb, try to have at least two ways to find any piece of information.

Fred Brown
Allegro Technical Indexing
fred.brown@allegrotechindexing.com
(613) 728-9373

March, 2003
Allegro Time!