Status Updates From Facing the Text: Content an...

Indexing is not a clerical job in which the tasks become automatic once you learn the routine. It is highly intense, creative work.

When the sub-headings throughout the index follow a pattern, the fact that you are bringing in some locators from a specific topic is no reason to change your pattern in the broader main entry.

I often find article titles whose very formal wording contrasts with the simpler term used elsewhere in the text.

When a main entry includes subheadings, is it acceptable to leave non-chapter span locators with no subheadings? Here we have another indexing controversy. Earlier in my career I was much more liberal about this than I am now. My current practice is to try to find a useful sub-heading for every locator.

Categorical subheadings are subcategories of the larger category expressed in the main heading.

Topics that the author uses as examples to expand on a point are not indexable...But I have found that this varies more than one would expect...When I know that a topic appears in the text as an example, I stop and think carefully, asking myself whether including it would help the reader.

...the main strategy for identifying local main topics in an organically organized text will be the patience to read carefully, letting the author's message sink into your mind.