Thread: Table of Contents and Index in Non-Fiction

I did a search here last night & found nothing. Feel free to move or merge if appropriate.

Is a table of contents in a biography really necessary? I've seen some with & some without. It seems to me that the ones that have a table have named chapters, & I don't feel this is always necessary. I wouldn't want the name of a chapter to define that particular chapter. I've read many without & it makes no difference. If a reader wants to bookmark their favorite chapter, they can flip through & find it without much effort.

Also, I tend to lean towards no index with regards to biographies. The ones that have it make it seem like a scholarly, i.e. learning/textbook. Again I've seen those with & without, & I can't figure out what the pattern is; why some have it & some don't. The only thing the ones without did, was make the search on a particular subject in that person's life a little longer to search for.

Are these things decided by the publisher, or does the author have a say?

You touched on the heart of the issue when you said 'The ones that have it make it seem like a scholarly...'. If you are writing a biography, or if you are ghost-writing someone's autobiography, the kind of reader the book is intended for will determine whether or not a table of contents and index should be included. For the casual reader neither is needed. For the serious reader, whether an academic or not, both should be included.

An example of the latter is The Man Who Invented Fidel by Anthony DePalma, a biography of Herbert L. Matthews of the New York Times. Because of my background I have more than a casual interest in reading about Matthews. He was an outstanding war correspondent for the Times who demonstrated for the rest of us how it should be done. The book includes an epilogue, acknowledgements, notes, and a bibliography as well as a table of contents and detailed index. For a reader with only a passing interest in Matthews these would not be needed. DePalma is, himself, an outstanding reporter and writer. See his website here. He is a journalist who is also a scholar, and his books are for the reader with a serious interest in his subjects.

If you write for the casual reader, skimming the surface of your subject, then the table of contents, index, and such, are not needed. If you write for the serious reader, then they are needed. And for the serious reader, the depth of research and level of writing demonstrated by a DePalma book are also required.

If you are writing a biography of Katy Price or Kim Kardashian the use of an index would only serve to grace the subjects with far more gravitas than they deserve; were the biographies of F Scott Fitzgerald or Joseph Conrad, an index would seem to be a prerequisite.

Same idea, but a more concise way of expressing it.

Hit the nail on the head, thanks. This is for the serious reader with a serious interest, so an index is definitely needed. Ambivalent still about a table, but I can be flexible with that. There will be an introduction, then the story, acknowledgents, references, bibliography, then I think the index last. I see your point, Bloggs: This would be no KK bio, not by a long shot, although unfortunately in the age of celebrity worship, people would be more interested in that.

Thanks both of you.