The previous Tools of the Trade posts have briefly discussed thesauruses, dictionaries, and encyclopedias. The first post on thesauruses also gives a quick overview of the More Resources for Writers page.

And now, for the focus of this fourth Tools of the Trade peek into resources used to aid indexers…

Style Guides

APA — The American Psychological Association Style guide (7th ed.)

*CMS — The Chicago Manual of Style (17th ed.) is commonly used by U.S. publishers, especially with reference to index style and formatting. CMS provides a full chapter (16) on the many issues that arise when creating an index; it provides guidance on the basics of indexing as well as more intricate details that are crucial for creating quality indexes.

*CMS-Deusto — The Chicago Manual of Style partnered with Spain’s Deusto University in Bilbao to create this invaluable Spanish version of Chicago’s 16th edition style guide. Chapter 16 provides the same in-depth treatment for creating and formatting (including alphabetizing) indexes in Spanish as the English-language publication does.

*ISO — The International Organization for Standardization

MLA — The Modern Language Association handbook (9th ed.)

SBL — The Society of Biblical Literature (2nd ed.) provides in-depth information on several important issues that indexers of religious works will face, including transliteration of ancient languages, alphabetization and naming practices, using bias-free language, and other special topics. It covers Christian as well as Islamic sources, and section 7 discusses the creation and formatting of indexes to religious scholarly works. I learned about this guide through an ASI course on indexing religious works.

*These style and standardization guides are, in my experience, the most-commonly used by indexers.