I’ve finished compiling the index for the third edition of MSCD. It’s fairly long—it occupies 22 pages of a single-spaced, single-column Word document.
Perhaps by way of rationalizing the work involved, I offer the following observations: A sure sign of a dubious reference work is a skimpy index. And a sure way to compromise an index is for the author to outsource the task to the publisher.
Unlike the indexes in the previous editions of MSCD, the index to the third edition features the following international components (the question marks are for front-matter page references):
Australia, ?, ?, 2.124, 3.57, 3.72, 3.74, 4.59, 5.48, 5.65, 5.69, 8.31, 8.38, 13.401, 13.404, 13.405.
British English, 12.56, 13.71, 13.56, 13.87, 13.244, 13.649, 20.34.
Canada, ?, ?, 2.36, 5.31, 8.36–37, 10.31, 12.23–28, 13.59–62, 13.320, 13.328, 13.401.
Commonwealth nations, 2.16, 2.100, 2.108, 2.165, 3.116, 4.59, 6.74, 16.63.
England, ?, 1.43, 2.16, 2.81, 3.52, 3.154, 3.247, 3.277, 3.286–88, 5.26, 5.30, 5.37, 5.47, 7.18, 7.38, 8.31–35, 8.42, 13.122, 13.506, 13.606, 14.30, 17.30.
United Kingdom, ?, 3.97, 13.398
Adding international materials is part of my effort to make it clear that MSCD‘s guidelines can apply to any contracts in English, regardless of the governing law.