Chicago Manual of Style (18.2) has quite the exalted description of what it takes to be an indexer:

Who should index a work? The ideal indexer sees the work as a whole, understands the emphasis of the various parts and their relationship to the whole and knows—or guesses—what readers of the particular work are likely to look for and what headings they will think of. The indexer should be widely read, scrupulous in handling of detail, analytically minded, well acquainted with publishing practices, and capable of meeting almost impossible deadlines.

Professional indexers, I thank you for your efforts on behalf of all researchers.

The style of Perry Miller’s writing is plain, so the substantive sections of his work make the reader understand the Puritans. But Miller also uses makes his reader feel the force of what the Puritans felt. In the first chapter of Errand into the Wilderness, he uses several analogies to good effect.

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When he hears the conventional wisdom about Jack becoming a dull boy, Dr. Leedy offers his corollary: “All play and no work makes Jack a dumb jerk.” So, with some reluctance but by popular demand from Kellen, John, Audrey, and Morgan, I submit a report of all the non-academic things I’ve been doing. [Read more »]

My hosting service had some considerable difficulties the past three days, so ΙΣΤΟΡΙΑ was temporarily unavailable. Everything seems to be fine now. Of course, I wasn’t sure that the unavailability was temporary, so I repented of my failure to back up this site frequently. I do back up my database daily, but the rest of the files hadn’t been backed up since January. No back ups were necessary, but I intend to reform.