Section 3.5.3

Indexes

Use well-structured indexes to make material in long documents accessible to your audience.

Indexes are extremely useful tools for allowing a reader to retrieve all important information. Construct an index that will be helpful for all your audience's purposes in using the document and that will be appropriate for their level of expertise.

Guidelines for Constructing an Index

• When writing a document, use features available in most word processors to mark items that should be included in an index.
• Include every important subject, topic, subtopic, and proper name in the index.
• Most indexes consist of two levels of entries, a main heading and a subheading:

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Operating systems
     AMOEBA
     DOS
     DOS/Windows
     UNIX

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• Use cross-references in appropriate places in the index to guide the reader to related information in the book:

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Word processors
     MS Word
     NoteBene
     WordPerfect
     See also Editors

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## Indexes ##


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