Q. We are starting to include indexes in the books we publish here at my office. In CMOS 16.65, you say that “If many numerals occur in an index, they may be listed together in numerical order at the beginning of the index, before the As.” We include large letters at the beginning of each new section: A before the entries beginning with the letter A, etc. If we include a section of numbers before the letters, what would that section heading be? 0–9? Numbers? It looks odd not having any title.
A. If A, B, C headings don’t work well with the content of a given index, they should be eliminated. Design serves the text, and thereby the reader. The text should not be forced into a design that doesn’t work well.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I am overwhelmed by the task of alphabetizing a list of book titles, as many of the titles have colons, commas, and in some
cases, dashes separating the title and subtitle. It is all getting to be a bit much for me. Given the large number of titles
I am working with, I would prefer to ignore all punctuation, but what to do in the following situation? Would I ignore the
dash, the comma, and the colon and move on to the word following Band in the title? Believe it or not, these are actual examples: The Beatles—Rock Band; The Beatles, Rock Band; The Beatles: Rock Band; The Beatles Rock Band.
A. Normally the only punctuation marks that matter in alphabetizing are parentheses and commas, but in the case of titles with
subtitles, it might make sense to promote the colon to primary importance. In that case, The Beatles: Rock Band would come first. After that, decide the order you like for other punctuation marks and note it in your style sheet. In titles,
the dash and comma sometimes serve the same role as a colon (separating the title and subtitle), so you might put them next.
Please note, too, that this issue does not fall into the category of stuff that is important to readers. However you order
these nearly identical titles, they are all in one convenient location for the reader. It’s not worth
your sanity to let it overwhelm you.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Would I alphabetize Kimberly Bowen-Smith Rinehart under B or under R?
A. We assume that the surname is the last word or hyphenated words in a name. Thus Kimberly Bowen-Smith Rinehart would go under
R; Kimberly Rinehart Bowen-Smith would go under B; and Kimberly Bowen Smith would go under S.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I have an author with (let’s say) the last name St. James and am having a hard time figuring out the correct form for her bibliography entry. Is it correct to write St. James, Bertha? Or James, St. Bertha? HELP!!
A. Having the surname St. James doesn’t make one Saint James—or Saint Bertha; Bertha’s surname starts with S.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I’m editing an art book, and an alphabetized list of mentioned paintings for the back of the book has all the titles with the article in front—for instance, “The Black Rose” is alphabetized under T. I want to change these to “Black Rose, The,” but my author feels that titles are sacrosanct and cannot be changed. I can’t find anything in my manual about treating paintings differently from titles of books in alphabetizing. In the end, I’ll go with whatever she decides, but I’d like to get your take on this. Thanks.
A. Your author’s plan isn’t off the wall. It’s akin to indexing the first lines of poems, in which it’s common to alphabetize under “A,” “An,” or “The” (please see CMOS 16.144). Your way would be fine, but there’s no harm in accommodating the author on this.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Your style manual shows an example of “Truman, Mrs. Harry S. (Bess).” In an index
under “Truman,” does Harry S. come before or after Mrs. Harry S. (Bess)? That
is, does Bess come before Harry or does Harry come before Mrs.?
A. In alphabetizing, your first strategy is to look at the next letter or word rather than jump to a word later in the string:
Mrs. Harry S. (Bess) starts with M, so put her after Harry. (Your question reveals that you’re still using the 14th edition of CMOS; in later editions, CMOS avoids the use of “Mrs.” as a keyword in indexing.)
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Do you recommend last-first or first-last order for obscure or potentially confusing names in index subentries? Last-first
seems awkward in terms of the number of commas required, but first-last requires alphabetizing by given names—also
awkward.
A. Normally names are typed in natural order in index subentries but alphabetized by surname:
Smith, Linda: and Susan Brown, 24, 57; fear of forks, 12; hot temper, xii, 3, 97, 228; speeding tickets, 13, 96–98;
Twitter scandal, 82; and Chris Williams, 117
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Is alphabetizing abbreviations based on the letters in the abbreviation or the letters in the spelled-out word? For example,
does wthr (weather) come before wiki (Wikipedia)? Which is “correcter,” letter-by-letter alphabetizing or word-by-word?
A. Letter-by-letter. If someone is consulting the list, it’s probably because he wants to learn what an
abbreviation stands for. It would be perverse to make him guess in order to find it.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I’m indexing Portuguese names. For example, António Gonçalves
Caldeira. Am I to index by the first last name or the second?
A. Portuguese names are indexed under the last element. If you are worried that readers will be lost, provide a cross-reference
under the middle element.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. In a bibliography where the title of an unsigned article is a date (“1939: The Beginning of the End”),
does the bibliography begin with this entry, or is it alphabetized according to its spelled-out word?
A. It’s usual to file a title like that under the spelled-out version of the number, in this case, nineteen. However, in lists where many such titles begin with numbers, you might rather group them all in numerical order at the beginning.
In rare instances you could post an important title at both locations or add a cross-reference directing the reader to the
location of the full citation.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]