Indexing

If your book will contain an index, it is your responsibility to prepare or pay for its creation.

Groundwork and draft elements of your index can be undertaken before you submit your manuscript, but the balance of this work will usually need to be done at second page proofs.

For more detailed information about indexing, refer to the Australian Government Style Manual.

Some indexing tips from ACER Press include:

• Don’t over-index – instead, think about what a reader might reasonably want to look up.
• Obvious items to index are names of people, organisations, institutions, events, places and concepts.
• Include terms or names that have more than a passing reference.
• Combine entries that are similar (for example, singular and plural)
• Electronic searching does not replace a careful reading of the text for indexing purposes.
• Use lower case for all entries other than proper nouns.
• Headings are arranged in alphabetical order. Subentries are arranged in alphabetical order within the entry and indented below the heading.
• Definite articles or prepositions are generally not part of the alphabetising of terms
• When an index entry consists of a noun with an adjective, the noun usually takes preference (for example, ‘reform, constitutional’).
• Acronyms should be spelled out in full, with the acronym in brackets.
• If a topic/concept is written about continuously in the text, the page numbers will be represented in a span as 103–7. However, if there are separate mentions of the topic/concept, the pages are presented separately as 103, 105, 107.