β Scribed by P. Burnhill; J. Hartley; Lindsey Davies
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
The authors have previous.ly published work on typography and the design of instructional materials. This paper reports the application of their approach to the design and layout of a textbook index.
In earlier papers we have described in more detail our approach to typography and the design of instructional materials (eg, see Burnhill and Hartley, 1975; Hartley and Bumhill, 1976a; 1977). In these papers we have been concerned to argue that text should be printed on predetermined page-sizes (in particular the internationally approved standard sizes); that the vertical and horizontal spacing of text should be rational and consistent (ie, 'unjustified'); and that space itself should be systematically manipulated to convey the structure of complex text more easily to the reader. We have shown this approach to be cost-effective when applied to the design of complex documents such as a college prospectus (Bumhill et al, 1975), to complex text (Hartley and Bumhill, 1976b), and to the design of questionnaires (Hartley et al, 1977). In this paper we wish to report the results that we obtained when we applied our approach to the design and layout of a textbook index.
There are a number of useful texts which give recommendations concerning the design of indexes (eg, Collison, 1959; Knight, 1969; Rees, 1970;Butcher, 1975). The main aim of these texts appears to be to explain how to compile an index, but in addition they also provide details concerning methods of punctuation, the use of capitals and italics, the role of indentation, and so on. The authors of these texts, in fact, disagree over many of these points and they offer different solutions to the many problems raised. In short, the content of these texts is concerned with the compilation of an index and with the typographic minutiae of its presentation: they are not concerned in detail with the overall layout of the index. Finally, we may note here in passing that few, if any, of the recommendations provided appear to be based upon empirical research.
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