A tale of indexing (in)consistency

Publication Date

6-1-2020

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Indexer

Volume

38

Issue

2

DOI

10.3828/indexer.2020.16

First Page

171

Last Page

183

Abstract

When multiple indexers are working on the same material, it is not always possible to achieve the aim of consistency. This research project reports on an analysis of journal indexing by students in a graduate-level indexing course. The students’ use of derived and assigned subject terms was analyzed in order to determine patterns of inter-indexer consistency and link them to indexing theory. While this study was limited to the indexing of one article by non-professional indexers, the findings confirm that consistency is possible and suggest underlying reasons for inconsistency.

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