How To Create a Usable Index — Interview with John McGhie

by Tom Johnson on Oct 20, 2006 •
categories: podcasts

John McGhie, technical writer and Microsoft MVP from Sydney, Australia, explains how to create a usable index for your help material.

In this interview, John covers the following topics:

• Deciding whether to create an index
• Skills required to create an index
• Steps in creating an index
• Audience considerations in creating an index
• Time required for creating an index
• Pitfalls writers face when creating an index
• Myths of the concordance file method for creating indexes
• Strategies for entries and subentries
• Methods for updating an index
• Determining whether your index is usable

For additional information, see the following:

• John McGhie's bio
• John's helpful article on indexing that I mention in the podcast
• The Word MVP home page
  

** To contact John, you can e-mail him at [email protected].

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