What is an index? (2024)

FAQs

What is the index in a book? ›

An index is found at the back of a book. It alphabetically lists all the major topics, events, people, and places discussed in the book and provides page numbers that direct you to each reference. Indexes can get quite specific and often run for several pages.

a. : a number (such as a ratio) derived from a series of observations and used as an indicator or measure. specifically : index number. b. : the ratio of one dimension of a thing (such as an anatomical structure) to another dimension.

An index is a group or basket of securities, derivatives, or other financial instruments that represents and measures the performance of a specific market, asset class, market sector, or investment strategy.

As mentioned, the Dow Jones, S&P 500, and Nasdaq Composite are three popular U.S. indexes.

Indexing is typically done when the interior of the print book is designed and formatted, and the page numbers will no longer change. This means the text is finalized. The only thing that might remain is a final proofread of the formatted manuscript.

Indexing is a specialized skill that takes a long time to master, and uses expensive software. It's also hard. And because the whole point of an index is to raise the value of your book, an obviously amateur index defeats its own purpose.

An index tracks the performance of a group of preselected investments, such as stocks. For example, the S&P 500 index tracks the performance of 500 of the largest U.S. companies.

An index is a method to track the performance of a group of assets in a standardized way. Indexes typically measure the performance of a basket of securities intended to replicate a certain area of the market.

What are Price Indices? A price index (PI) is a measure of how prices change over a period of time, or in other words, it is a way to measure inflation. There are multiple methods on how to calculate inflation (or deflation).

The exact definition is, “an alphabetical list of names, subjects, etc., with references to the places where they occur, typically found at the end of a book.” If you crack open almost any non-fiction book, you can find one.

How does indexing work? ›

Indexing is the way to get an unordered table into an order that will maximize the query's efficiency while searching. When a table is unindexed, the order of the rows will likely not be discernible by the query as optimized in any way, and your query will therefore have to search through the rows linearly.

Indexes are used to retrieve data from the database more quickly than otherwise. The users cannot see the indexes, they are just used to speed up searches/queries. Note: Updating a table with indexes takes more time than updating a table without (because the indexes also need an update).

An index is a list of all the names, subjects and ideas in a piece of written work, designed to help readers quickly find where they are discussed in the text. Usually found at the end of the text, an index doesn't just list the content (that's what a table of contents is for), it analyses it.

What is the difference between a table of contents and an index? A table of contents tells you the names of the chapters and where you find each section. An index usually tells you where particular words or expressions are found in a book.

appendix: a section of extra information added at the end of a book. index: An index is essentially a roadmap to the book, listing names, places, and things in alphabetical order and giving the page numbers associated with each topic.

A glossary is a collection of words pertaining to a specific topic. In your thesis or dissertation, it's a list of all terms you used that may not immediately be obvious to your reader. In contrast, an index is a list of the contents of your work organized by page number.