Indexing

The joys of indexing. Here's a challenge for which grad school didn't prepare me, a task that's time consuming and tedious, but also an interesting way to interact with a written product. I've spent the last month or so indexing the anthology. This entailed sitting at Caribou Coffee on many of my writing days with the manuscript and a big yellow legal pad, pouring over chapters and deciding what terms and concepts warranted an entry in the book's index, and then carefully tracking the appearances of those terms and concepts.

One complexity is how to handle a fundamental concept like 'working class.' I mean, the whole book revolves around this topic, so do you just toss out the term completely, or come up with sub-categories, or what? And how do you handle references to secondary sources? I mean if someone is using a Burkean lens to look at a phenomenon throughout her chapter, do you reference Burke throughout the chapter, or only when Burke's quoted, or only when Burke's mentioned, or only when Burke is discussed in some detail, and, if so, how much detail?

How did I do? Not sure. I'm happy with the index; indeed, I emailed it to the publisher the other day. It's accurate and, I believe, thorough, but it was a first for me, so, again, I just don't know. Some entries probably have too many references ('class consciousness,' 'gender,' 'ideology,' 'organized labor') and, hence, maybe needed sub-categories. Then again, some entries strike me as odd for a rhetoric book (Extreme Makeover, Notorious B.I.G., Steel Workers Organizing Council, White Trash, and Work Songs) and, as such, just make me excited that the thing's going to see the light of day in a few short months.