Authors, take some notes.
When you're writing subheads within chapters, you'd be doing your readers -- and your indexer -- a great favor if the text of the subhead actually bore some resemblance to the content following it.
Some authors and publishers present an indexer's dream: accurately and concisely written subheads that from word one of the new section -- or at least beginning in the second paragraph -- address the stated topic. They are in the minority.
Many offer a page or so of introductory or transitional material before getting around to the topic.
The outliers, though, are the ones who drive me crazy. They'll take a phrase such as "Morality and Essential Freedoms" and not address essential freedoms by name for the next eight pages. Maybe the topic appears in the section summary.
I suspect this writing approach also leads to authors who feel that some subjects don't receive enough treatment in the index. I can hear it: "But, but, a whole section on morality and essential freedoms started on page 27 and ran for 10 pages."
Yeah, but you didn't get around to talking about it specifically until page 36. Not my problem, bub.
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