Index QC - Scribe

Check the following to confirm the quality of index documents.

Consult the appropriate style guide (CMS, APA) as well as individual publisher guidelines and project specifications.

Scribing

Does the document meet the requirements of a WFDW scribing?

Content Presence and Order

Does the SAI’s Mark for Editing cleanup option reveal any errors for potentially hidden text?

Edits

Does reviewing tracked changes reveal any errors?

Is the file locked?

If the file is proceeding to the author for review, lock the tracked changes.

If the file is proceeding to conversion to another format, all tracked changes should be accepted and Track Changes turned off.

Rendering (General)

Are all styles rendering in the appropriate color?

Are there any colors present that are not part of the Word template?

Has all highlighting been removed?

Are foreign terms formatted correctly?

Comments

Does reviewing the comments reveal any errors?

Are there query marks or comments that should not be present?

Spell Check

Does running spell check reveal any errors?

Punctuation

Does the SAI’s Mark for Editing cleanup option reveal any errors?

Check for unmatched paired punctuation.

Check for missing paragraph-ending punctuation.

Index Expectations

Does the index meet the expectations for the publication?

Check the length of index.

Check the length of individual entries.

Check for the inclusion of necessary elements.

Check for the exclusion of unnecessary elements.

Does the index have the appropriate number of entry levels?

If the index includes subheadings, are they in the proper order?

Index Alphabetical Order

Does the index follow proper alphabetical order as determined by the style guide?

Examples: Letter by letter or word by word; numbers alphabetized separately or as though spelled-out

Index Page Numbers

Are page numbers included for all necessary instances of the term?

Are inclusive numbers handled correctly per the style guide?

Are numbers in ascending order?

Does the number of page locators listed for an entry indicate a need to separate into subentries?

Do page numbers listed correspond with the proper pages in the book?

If a subheading shares a locator with the main entry, has the locator been removed for the main entry?

Are index numbers properly referencing notes?

Do ranges of notes use “nn” instead of “n”?

For index page locators with note numbers, is there more than one instance of that note number on the page?

When two notes on the same page have the same number, is the chapter indicated in parentheses after the note number?

Index Text and Punctuation

Is the text spelled, capitalized, and punctuated correctly?

Does the punctuation treatment match the treatment used in the body of the book?

Are en dashes used correctly to indicate page ranges?

Are semicolons used between subentries (in run-in indexes)?

Are colons used correctly between main entries and subentries?

Index Cross-References

Are “see” locators formatted correctly?

Inclduing variations like “see also” and “see also under.”

Do “see” locators lead to an index entry?

Text Checks

Export .sam from InDesign to perform text checks in the .sam file.

Convert the Index .docx file to .sam. Add the index to the end of the main .sam file, before the closing </sam> tag. (Do not include the metadata from the index file.)

Upload the new .sam file to the Digital Hub and convert to .scml.

Do the file stats in the Digital Hub reveal any errors?

Do the searches from the Regular Expressions Resource reveal any errors?

Run the searches under “Index Section (.scml files)" to find possible linking or formatting issues.