Subject Indexing Rules

The index SHOULD provide access to substantively treated concepts, entities, processes, events, relationships, causes, consequences, arguments, conclusions, and reader tasks—not merely repeated words.

Every access point SHALL be supportable from source evidence establishing its subject, relationship, scope, chronology, attribution, and stance.

Every essential and major source treatment SHALL have at least one useful access route unless it is explicitly excluded. A central omission is a critical defect.

Passing mentions, contentless citations, and incidental names or examples SHALL NOT be treated like meaningful discussion.

A comparative fact or attributed observation may be substantive or mixed when it supplies independently useful information about the complete heading path. Its rhetorical form does not automatically make it weak.

A heading SHOULD be specific enough to identify the treatment for the intended reader. It SHOULD NOT fragment coherent subjects into unfindable microentries or collapse distinct subjects under vague umbrella terms.

Preferred headings SHOULD use terminology that is faithful to the source and intelligible to likely readers.

Synonyms, spelling variants, abbreviations, acronyms, former names, and likely user terms SHOULD reach the preferred concept through direct posting or a valid cross-reference.

People, organizations, places, works, events, products, and scientific names SHALL be represented consistently and disambiguated where confusion is plausible.

Headings SHALL preserve the source's attribution, negation, uncertainty, chronology, contested status, and degree of confidence. An index SHALL NOT convert a rejected, hypothetical, quoted, attributed, or qualified claim into an unqualified assertion.

A heading SHOULD be concise, meaningful, and understandable without requiring the reader to reconstruct an unexplained keyword fragment. Grammar, spelling, capitalization, abbreviation, and punctuation SHOULD be internally consistent.

The baseline display SHALL use no more than a main heading and one subheading level. A third visible heading level is a publication-readiness failure under the baseline profile.

Sibling subheadings SHOULD be logically coordinate, grammatically parallel, and meaningful with their main heading. Subdivision SHOULD be used when it improves navigation, not solely because a locator count crosses a numerical threshold.

A compound heading SHALL receive a locator only when the target supports the complete combined concept or relationship. If a page supports only separate components, those components must be indexed separately or the heading must be reformulated.

A see reference SHOULD replace locators only from a genuinely nonpreferred heading to a valid target that provides the complete intended access. A see also reference SHOULD add useful related access.

Cross-references SHALL NOT be broken, self-referential, circular, or needlessly chained. Direct posting is preferred when it materially reduces reader effort without creating false equivalence.

Every locator SHALL resolve to an existing destination in the declared source and locator scheme. Fabricated or nonexistent locators are critical defects.

Every locator SHALL point into indexable matter unless a recorded evaluation-policy exception applies.

A locator SHOULD identify the most direct useful destination available. A nearby page cannot supply meaning that is absent from the cited destination.

The destination SHALL provide independently useful information about the complete heading path. Treatment strength does not cure a mismatch in subject, relationship, scope, chronology, attribution, compound meaning, or stance.

A continuous range SHOULD begin and end within one continuous treatment. One displayed range counts as one displayed locator but expands into atomic page assignments for support auditing.

More than six displayed locators under one undivided heading path or a continuous range longer than ten pages triggers editorial review. Exactly six displayed locators or a ten-page range does not trigger review.

A trigger is not automatically a defect. A scored architecture defect requires evidence that the entry combines conceptually distinct treatments, that a useful alternative organization exists, and that the current presentation materially harms retrieval.

Duplicate assignments, redundant overlapping ranges, and unexplained repeated access SHOULD be removed or justified.

The delivered artifact SHALL be complete enough to identify headings, hierarchy, locators, ranges, cross-references, and termination reliably.

Spelling, capitalization, punctuation, locator style, indentation, and alphabetization SHOULD be consistently applied.

The index SHOULD be legible and scannable at its intended delivery size. Indentation, continuations, locator separation, cross-reference styling, and section labels should be unambiguous.

Mechanical correctness does not compensate for inadequate coverage, poor selectivity, misleading headings, unsupported locators, or failed navigation.