Indexing is uncovering, discovering, and analyzing concepts within content, and finding the connections between them. It is reading on behalf of future readers, anticipating what they will need to know, and how their brains will seek it out.
 
What indexing is not, is simply taking words out of a text, and alphabetizing them.

The indexer needs to be part etymologist, part archivist, part analyst – with a dash of the poet, too. Creating, writing, and building an index is like solving a puzzle. The authors clues are found in the text, but determining how these clues relate to one another is the job of the indexer.

So, what is an index? 
• It is the interface between author and reader.
• It is a content and subject analysis.
• It is a map, providing efficient access to information.
• It is an act of creative writing.
• It is transparent to the reader.
 
Readers want information.

“Indexes – written on behalf of the reader
. . . with the voice of the author” TM