Index Review Instructions for Authors

Well . . . there's a searchable title, if the Google ever condescends to picking up this blog again. Maybe soon.

Working on an index for an author who has never been through the process. The author asked what to look for upon receiving the index. I'll post my response here, which also means I might be able to find it for boilerplate in case I ever need it again:

+++

I'd just make sure that the index accurately captures the themes in the book and presents them in a way that your intended readership would expect.

Not that I want to forecast anything, but a lot of authors will say, "Looks good" and maybe reword an entry or two. Occasionally an author will ask for more detailed treatment of a subject. Very rarely, I'll have an author request wholesale changes; usually it's a case of an author expecting a concordance (which an index is not) or trying to make connections or pump up coverage of a topic in the index that the text itself doesn't necessarily justify.

One place your input would be welcome would be on consolidation of subentries, especially under an all-consuming entry such as "Internet." Sometimes my indexes get a little too granular or detailed, and if you can help me in tightening up subentries, if you think it's necessary, that would be great.

Today's Unattributed Quote: Social Sciences

[might be a few more of these. sort of an interesting book]

The North Korean Chosun Central TV channel reported the results of a survey which confirmed that North Korea is the second “happiest” country in the world, beaten only by China. The other countries that round out the top five happiest list include Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela, in that order. Perhaps not so shockingly, South Korea ranked near the bottom at 152, while the United States came in dead last out of the 203 countries “surveyed” (International Business Times 2011).

APA Derangement Syndrome

I can recommend absolutely nothing about the work pictured here -- from the design and organization of the printed volume to the style regime recommended therein.

The only thing I can imagine is that the book is a revenue generator for reasons that have nothing to do with editorial style. The American Psychological Association publishes this monstrosity to drive people into the arms of the people whose careers the APA supports.

Great Index Entry

I am pretty certain that deep in the bowels of this blog I've already noted this name, but here he is again:

Dear, John, 225

Plea to Authors

When writing a 230-page book with seven chapters, please don't make the first chapter 60 pages long. You're not going to make any friends among your readers . . . or please your indexer.

Not that the length of the chapter affects the index much, but I'd sure like to feel that I'm getting somewhere.

Thank you.

The management.

Today's Unattributed Quote: Theology

"If understood properly, suffering has teleological value; it is life’s warning system, causing us to reevaluate our life direction, moving us toward eventual fulfillment, deepening our sense of compassion, and requiring that we seek companionship and community along the way as we travel toward an uncertain yet promising future."

An Interesting Phrase

Came across the phrase, “The game is not worth the candle,” which I'd never heard.

Explanation:

“The returns from an activity or enterprise do not warrant the time, money or effort required. For example, ‘The office he is running for is so unimportant that the game's not worth the candle.’ This expression, which began as a translation of a term used by the French essayist Michel de Montaigne in 1580, alludes to gambling by candlelight, which involved the expense of illumination. If the winnings were not sufficient, they did not warrant the expense. Used figuratively, it was a proverb within a century.”

From Dictionary.com, The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.

Today's Unattributed Quote: International Relations

Bring it on:

"Finally, as a society transitions to the postmaterial stage, its citizens will increasingly favor the values of self-expression and prefer leisure to work, and they will give decreasing emphasis to survival concerns, that is, the need to attend to their basic material needs for physical existence."

Those Wacky Germans

Reminds me of our trip to the dominatrix’s studio in Berlin back in 2000 (purely for research purposes and local color, of course. And who could turn down such an invitation?).


From the current project:

Berkeley, CA, 1916:

Kem Weber designed another party, held at the Forkes’ house on Berryman Street in mid-May. It was “for the benefit of the German bazaar” for war-relief. The theme was a “baby ball.” All of the attendees, including a number of other Berkeley professors and the German consul and vice-consul, dressed as infants, in diapers, with little bonnets. Weber designed the program, invitations, many of the costumes, and the decorations, transforming the Forke home “into a giant nursery.”

Testimonials: A Letter Rolled In

In case you’re not familiar with the phrase in the blog title, it’s typically used when a group sends a mass of letters to the editor that are obviously all the same text, just submitted by different people.

A new and welcome author came in over the transom a few days ago, and I asked how the person was familiar with my services. The response: 

A mentor of mine, a serial entrepreneur, asked a couple of his contacts on my behalf. He stated your name was given on multiple occasions. 

Not sure there were actually either a couple of contacts or multiple occasions. Smacks a little of an echo chamber, but I’m happy for the buzz.

+++

More on the testimonial front. Received a 120,000-word novel for copyediting, and the publisher couldn't take the job unless she could get quite hasty turnaround on the job in order to meet a print deadline: 

Getting this done so quickly has helped me and the author so much, Bob. I can’t thank you enough. 

And from a university press whose name you’d know:

The level of indexing was very thorough and the author was very pleased with the detailed index. The index was sent to me on time which was appreciated because of the short turnaround. 

+++

All this feels very nice, because the month has been brutal on numerous fronts. I'll get back to whining and complaining about work soon.

On a personal note, about 8 minutes ago, I turned 54 years old. In a hospital room on Staten Island, New York — same hospital where my father was born in 1932 — came one of the ugliest children on record. Badly jaundiced, dent in the head, ears rolled up. Story I once heard was that the nurse said, “What a beautiful baby," and one of my grandmothers burst into tears. I understand my dad went to the track for three days.

Notable things that happened on March 28? Three-Mile Island. Eisenhower died. However, my dear, departed Aunt Muriel was born — one of the wildest women I’ve ever known, and I wish I had known her better. And, damn, I wish I could be more like her. If we ever run into each other, ask me to tell some Aunt Muriel stories. She was seventy years old when my wife and I married, and friends of mine who were in their twenties would have been more than happy to hit on her. She looked kinda like Joan Collins, if Joan Collins was prettier and a lot classier without effort.

"If Understanding Was to Be Achieved."

Tell me about it.

I've almost forgotten what it's like to index a book in a different language. Now I'm remembering how little fun it is:

This is what effectively makes sense perception an unsuccessful competitor to a micro-corpuscularian natural philosophy. What Malebranche had offered was a comprehensive vindication of the sole legitimacy of micro-corpuscularian explanation. If Malebranche were right, the phenomenal level could not possibly have any explanatory autonomy, and the realm of sensation had to be bypassed in favour of a theoretical and wholly reductionist natural philosophy if understanding was to be achieved.

You Can't Go Home Again, but You Can Get Stuck There

Supposed to fly out of my hometown, New York City, later today for home in southwestern Virginia via Atlanta, my second hometown, but a bad winter storm is affecting the Southeast Wednesday and then moving up to New York on Thursday. Stuck in New York until Friday afternoon -- thankfully at a dear friend's apartment in Manhattan, which beats the hell out of sleeping on top of bags in an airport, or paying for two more nights in a New York hotel room. The poor bank account is hemorrhaging money. Maybe I can pull a shift of legal proofreading with my brother.

But my wife and I did go to the Westminster Dog Show this week -- the ultimate in low-stress entertainment -- and Pinter's No Man's Land and Beckett's Waiting for Godot in rep on Broadway last Saturday. (See website here.) As I mused to some friends beforehand, seems like anyone sitting through these two plays in one day deserves lollipops if they haven't started carving on their own wrists by the middle of act 2 of Godot. Great performances.

Our personal favorite in the Best of Show round. You can keep those goofy standard poodles. The corgi would have made us happy, too.

So, Why Do I Love Sports Books?

On ballplayer/broadcaster Richie "Whitey" Ashburn:

From 1971 until Ashburn’s death, he was joined by Harry Kalas in the booth, where the two became best of friends and almost inseparable on road trips. During his speech at Ashburn’s Hall of Fame induction ceremonies in Cooperstown, New York, Kalas paid tribute to his colleague and friend of nearly 30 years in the most fitting way by acknowledging Ashburn’s professionalism as an astute broadcaster and his sense of humor as a regular person. Kalas said the following:
 
>> People ask me what it was like working with Richie. His Whiteness and I were together for 27 years, and it was such a joy. He not only brought to the booth baseball experience but also laughter. Whitey had a marvelous sense of humor. I remember doing games with him, and it would be getting late in the game, late in the evening, and Whitey would say on the air, “I wonder if the people at Celebres Pizza are listening tonight?” Well, within 15 minutes, bang, pizzas are delivered to the radio booth.
 
This went on for a while, and pretty soon the Phillies management summoned him and they said, “Richie, Celebres Pizza is not one of our sponsors. We can’t give them free plugs.” Now we do birthday and anniversary announcements on the air, so shortly after his meeting with the Philadelphia brass, it’s getting late in the evening and he’s getting hungry. He said, “Well, I have very special birthday wishes to send out tonight to the Celebres twins—Plain and Pepperoni.”

Just My Luck

I have moved from a lengthy project in which the authors wrote innocently with footnotes and in American style, not knowing (apparently) that their chapters were going to be published author/date and in British style (love that British spelling and punctuation -- 98,000 words of it, with about a third to come) into a project written by a couple of individuals from a city area east of the Mississippi who seem to think that titles, quotes, and random phrases need enclosure within single quotation marks. In front of the period.

Unfortunately, it's also of the genre that I occasionally think, I'm getting paid to read this?

Happens about once a year or two. A sports book. From an era I can relate to, early to mid-1960s. I'm more familiar with these names than I am with 95 percent of the All-Stars in any of the major sports in the last 20 years.

The book I worked on about Sandy Koufax many years ago was probably the last time I was paid to read the words "Harmon Killebrew."

Don't Go to This Author If You Want to Keep a Secret

Author has put the following text for a source line on a prose extract:

L2, 1994, 7.2.1; typographical errors silently corrected

With friends like this one . . .

Constructive Criticism on Indexing, Hitting Me Right at Home: UPDATE

Longtime readers of this blog know that I’ve been proofreading since adolescence. Copyediting and certainly indexing came much later.

My proofreading hasn’t changed much. Except for items that might appear in technical manuals, I’ve seen about everything a proofreader can see. Neither the marks nor my approach to the task has changed much over the years. Be aggressive, and be friendly about it.

Copyediting: I go back and forth. I used to put commas after short introductory phrases; now I’m as likely to delete them. I used to think style sheets were more trouble than they’re worth; I’ve changed my mind. Used to be that I’d want to strip out every “there is” in a manuscript. I’ve relaxed a little and figured (and been told) it’s not necessary. Even Chicago Manual of Style standards change over time, as has some of the technology (e.g., XML coding).

Indexing is the strangest bird, for many reasons. I’m embarrassed by my early indexes (almost 20 years ago now -- gulp), and I still mull over the best way to approach the task.

Presses are also different -- as are authors -- so the matter of managing expectations comes into play. I recently had an exchange with an author for whom I was writing an index, and we came to a mutual conclusion that I’m more of an author’s indexer than a publisher’s indexer. I tend to overindex, which delights the former and can frustrate the latter.

Consider two highly regarded scholarly presses:

Press 1 allows the indexer free reign. The managing editor’s attitude is not to restrict the indexer at all, page count be damned.

Press 2 sets strict guidelines for length of the index and allows me to exceed that number only reluctantly and with good reason from me. Some of the books they send . . . I swear that I could not deliver a useful or comprehensive index in the space allotted.

I have one of those books coming up from this press, although I’m working directly for the author. I wrote the press’s managing editor, groveling in advance for some extra lines and asking for any advice.

In response I received some wonderful thoughts that were really a pretty severe critique of my work. It’s one of the most helpful emails I’ve ever received. Now it’s just a matter of putting it into practice.

Thanks, AW, for these comments. Authors, editors, and fellow indexers, take note:

If I recall your earlier indexes correctly, the wording of entries and esp. subentries was very thorough, sometimes more so than was needed. The index just needs to guide the reader to relevant pages; it doesn't need to tell him exactly what he will find there. So, more economy in wording would help. Also, although you followed such a consistent pattern that I found it difficult to condense or eliminate subentries, there were times when you provided subentries when the number of page citations did not warrant them. In some cases, the subdivisions were repeated throughout, and so it was useful to keep the pattern of subentries, even though there may have been only one or two citations in each one. Perhaps [this book] will not lend itself to that kind of repeated pattern and you will be able to condense or skip more subentries. Sometimes a little wandering around in the book has benefit for the reader.

I’d love some feedback from the readership. I know you’re out there.

***

UPDATE: I sent the note above to one of my other managing editors, who responded,

Hmm.  To tell you the truth, I think your indexes generally include just the right amount of detail—but then, I come from an academic text background. We’ve had more problems in the past with indexers who include entries with 20 page refs, which indicates to me that it should be broken down further. We always review the indexes, and the editors invariably cut out a handful of the single-page-ref entries, but on the whole, I have absolutely no complaints about, or even suggestions for your indexes. The new indexer you recommended could definitely use these guidelines—good indexer, but MUCH too much detail. But not you.

However, in the interests of making your life easier, let’s call a 1000-line, 8-10-page index, with the amount of detail described below, the “standard.”  I don’t even think much of recommendations that the editors make on the Production Memo. I’m far more comfortable with you deciding whether a more, or less, detailed index is required.

I make MY life easier by surrounding myself with people who know what they are doing, and then NOT micro-managing. My job is half over when I FIND the right people. And people enjoy their work more when it’s THEIR work.

The only thing that would really help me is if I were able to tell you how many text pages I need for the index, but that’s a tough call, does not always jive with the kind of index the content demands, and my typesetters can generally play around and get it to fit anyway.  For example, I’m hoping for a 16-page index for [the current project] simply because that’s about how many pages I need to fill.  I could do a half signature and use an 8-page index, but then I worry that such a short one isn’t adequate for that book.

Man, I bet you’re sorry you brought this up.

More on Weather

Or moron weather, take your pick.

The forecast for the overnight is a low of 11. It's midnight . . . and 6 degrees. Doesn't feel like it's warming up out there either. I walked the dog around the block around noon when the temps finally pushed into the positive numbers today, and by the time I got home, I felt like I couldn't walk down the hallway in my house without banging into a wall.

Anyway.

I read a lot, obviously. And I'll read longer into a lot of useless news articles because, well, it's yet another way to avoid work.

Also, the interesting stuff is often at the bottom of the article. Sure, pouring beet juice and mozzarella brine on the roads sounds nifty to help rock salt do its business during serious cold snaps, but read the last paragraph.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20140107/DAB676SO0.html

And then Google "Halliburton loophole."

Sure . . . wastewater from fracking is exactly what we want to spread all over the roads in this country. 

Idiots.

Weather Report: Local Conditions

It's 9am, and it's warmed up to minus 3.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Yippee.

I do not like this at all.

Up and Running

I've made some oblique references to it over the months, but I'm now at the point where I'm considering it a live deal -- a going concern, as the business textbooks I used to write and edit would say.

pastorspress.net

Tell your friends.

And the blog there has somewhat of a different czarist voice than any regular readers here may have come to expect. Let's just say that I'm hoping to attract by imitating folks I've not yet met.

Wish me luck. If you have any questions or know anyone you want to send my way, email me or direct them to the site.

I'm trying not to be too concerned about the 5,700 years of ancestors spinning in their graves -- a few in particular. They'll get over it. I hope.

Today's Gripe

Well, I had an idea for a new year's post. It can wait.

Note to scholarly/academic and most other authors: Unless your book identifies itself as a work of fiction, you don't need to start paragraphs with "It is a fact that." Unless you've already given readers reason to feel that you are not quite grasping your own reality or your subject matter, we'll take for granted that you are, indeed, presenting facts.

Thanks.