How to Index Your Book Manuscript

Although I paid about $750 to have my first book A Mosaic of Believers indexed, I didn't end up liking the job. Although not every reader uses a book's index, I came to see it as an opportunity to promote ideas and concepts and to show how my book speaks to those. So I indexed my next two books. 

Here's a quick how-to: 

Get a stack of index cards. Go through proof sheets of your book marking names, places, organizations (those are easy), and also ideas, concepts, theoretical items (which may not be addressed directly by actual name or label). Put the names/labels on the header line of an index card, a separate card per header. List page numbers relevant for each header. As your stack of cards grow, place headers in alphabetical order using a little card filing box. 

As you go through the proof sheets, you'll see your index cards grow, and you'll also have more ideas. You might create new index cards and re-think how to group together other pages that correspond to these new ideas.

When you finish going through the proofs, sort your index cards. Perhaps some (most?) can become sub-ideas, or sub-themes, and those will be placed under cards you now assign as main headings. You can create cross-reference headings if you have related ideas (see xyz…) .  

It took me about 4-5 days (not full time, amidst all else) to work through proofs, creating cards, and getting it done. 

Then I had a student type up my headings followed by page numbers, and put sub-headings underneath also with page numbers. All headings are in alphabetical order.

Proof read your final sheet of indexed terms and page numbers. Send to publisher! 

Paper versus Digital - Paper Wins

So, it happened. After several months of keeping up with blogging (more or less), I've suddenly found my time shrinking dramatically and have had to cut corners, re-prioritize, and make new to-do lists. And, guess what?

Paper-based projects take priority over digital ones.

Image via Wikipedia

Let's start with the obvious. I've got journal articles in "the pipeline" that need attention, and draft chapters of my current book need revising (and quite a bit of writing left to go). These products will eventually become paper as the process of turning onscreen words into offscreen print is what drives the process overall.

At the end of the day, articles and books are also becoming online, digital entities. Just about everything I've ever published is available electronically. But the fact that these will be paper products -- and not just online -- makes it a priority because these products count more for my professional future.

In addition, my students turn in papers. Yep, I'm old-school about that, and my office is starting to collect a pile of papers that need evaluation for a final grade. I work these over with my pen, writing brief comments and assuring myself that I've understood their accomplishment which I then place into a matrix of my standards for the course.

And I continue to read, read, read. Although I've tried ebook readers and computer-downloaded content, I find I read more thoughtfully and more energetically when I have the physical paper in my hands. Yes, I even print out online articles to read on paper.

Wow, I'm feeling old.

Well, I will add more thoughts to this blog soon. I've been thinking about several things. I've also been asked to contribute to other blogs out there.

But, first, I've got to get these papers done.

Grand Narratives and Imaginary Beings - Religion and American Culture Conference

Yes, the laptop battery died, but the conference did continue. A few notes from a conversation among historians...

John Corrigan, Department of Religious Studies, Florida State University, gave a wonderful reflection on “Grand Narrative,” asking is it still useful to utilize Grand Narratives in religious history? His answer is “yes,” although it is a qualified yes with a discussion of what might constitute for him an ideal approach.

Image by mitopencourseware via Flickr

With a mix of boldness and caution, historians can focus on discrete events while making humans alive, although they come to life as individuals who are embedded within groups (rather than autonomous beings confined to psychodynamic mechanisms) and layered in multiple contextualizations of cultural, ideological, and structural currents (rather than monistic conceptions of deterministic social forces).

Corrigan even described this way of writing history as being like “burying people alive” which I take as articulating the real behavior of people while layering the multiple structural conditions that enable and constraint their behavior regardless of their level of awareness to such conditions.

It's also a history that can generalize -- even posit “cause and effect” relationships -- and incorporate an engaged observation of human behavior at the ground level.

Dennis Dickerson, Department of History, Vanderbilt University, spoke at some length about the failure of historians to develop and explore broader issues. He not only agrees with Corrigan that Grand Narratives remain useful and important but also insists that monographs are required for many arenas of study simply because of the need for more in-depth analysis.

Monographs provide more data and context. More importantly, monographs allow the narrative room to engage broader issues that can draw a broader circle of corporate inquiry.

Image by remuz [Jack The Ripper] via Flickr

Robert Orsi, Department of Religious Studies, Northwestern University remains provocative in talking this afternoon about reconceptualizing historical engagement with religious experience.

Historians need to refuse to subordinate “gods, saints, ghosts, Jesus, etc.," to social categories that dismiss such entities as epiphenomena of other, "more real" forces. Instead, he argues that historians need to accept these as generative sources of activity that have historical life and agency on their own.

Orsi called these "imaginary beings,” but in the most complementary sense of the word as real beings who are socially consequential. Historians should not sidestep the reality of these presences but rather show how these presences become real and consequential in personal experience and in the making of history.

Moleskine Art

Many of us enjoy our Moleskine notebooks, handy tools with pocket, ribbon, and elastic band to keep our thoughts together.

But others are taking this little book to a whole new level - creating art. Here's one example:

When I see art like this, it reminds me how far my imagination has yet to stretch.

This is only one example. Sketches, paints, portraits, fanciful images, collages, even pop-up books -- the uses for these little sketch books is amazing.

For more images and ideas, check out these links:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/10/22/moleskine-art-beautiful-examples-and-talented-artists/

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/16/public-skineart-mole.html

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/04/17/jim-woodrings-popup-.html

http://octolan.com/moleskine/

http://www.skineart.com/

Bringing Out the Poet in You - Online Writing Tool

Here's a tool that looks up rhyming words as you write.

Instead of leaving what you're writing to find rhymes in a rhyming dictionary, just alt-click (or option-click) on the word you need a rhyme for and select from a pop-up list of suggested rhymes.

Dangerous Toy - Create Your Own Church Sign

Here's an easy to use site that lets you to create a very realistic church sign.

After playing with a few fun lines, it makes me question how many of the hilarious ones I've seen online are "real."

Distraction-Free Writing Zone

DarkCopy is for anyone who enjoys the simplicity of a typewriter, and wants to increase productivity by focusing only on writing. It was created as a free, web-based clone of WriteRoom.

Try "full screen" mode.