TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
David Castro writ:
>I tend to use the verb when it is highly likely that the end-users
>will look up that word. For example "Printing a report" would be
>indexed under both "Report" and "Printing." But, "Adding a field
>to a report" would only be indexed under "Field" and "Report." I
>refer to it as "indexing _strong_ verbs."
Whether to index verbs depends strongly upon your audience. If your
audience includes many novices, indexing verbs can be a real help. If
novices aren't a big part of your audience, verbs are far less useful.
The product my company makes has a large number of novices in the
audience. So we index the heck out of verbs -- we even index verb
synonyms. So there's adding, creating, defining, and setting up.
There's also changing, modifying, altering, editing, and revising.
