E-D Award Information

Submission deadline: Friday, March 14, 2025

Submissions are open! The application has never been easier.

• It’s all online.
• You don’t need a hard copy — a PDF of the published book AND/OR the PDF sent to you by the publisher plus your Word/RTF file of the index.
• The cost is only $30.

The benefits:

• The winner will receive two tickets to the conference banquet at the next in-person conference.
• We provide feedback for up to three runners-up.

No restriction to the subject matter or genre — textbooks, cookbooks, guidebooks, memoirs, art books, how-to books, travel books, all books — it’s your index we will be looking at.

Show us how you creatively overcame challenges, resulting in an outstanding, well-structured, easy-to-navigate, clear and comprehensive guide for all of its users.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Maybe you’ll get the prize (which won’t happen if you don’t apply). And even if you don’t win, you’re likely to receive expert confidential feedback. That’s worth a lot.

This year you can submit indexes published in 2023 and 2024. If you are a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada, this is the time to do it. If you are not a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, you may submit an index if you were a member of ISC/SCI at the time you wrote the index.

See the Ewart-Daveluy Award page for more information.

The award committee did not present the Ewart-Daveluy Award in 2024.

The indexes submitted did some things very well and tackled the challenges of complex texts. Nonetheless, we agreed that none reached the level of consistent excellence that merits the award.

The committee doesn’t expect perfect indexes, but meeting most of the criteria is essential. All of these criteria are best practices that we should be applying in our indexing work. You can find them on the ISC/SCI’s website.

Take some time over the summer to review the criteria and make use of them in your upcoming projects. Then you’ll be well on your way to submit an index for the 2025 Ewart-Daveluy award.

The call for submissions for the 2025 award will come out in the fall. There are no restrictions to the subject matter or genre you can submit – we look at all kinds of books: textbooks, cookbooks, art books, how-to books, memoirs and more.

Show us how you have creatively overcome challenges, resulting in a well-structured, easy-to-navigate, clear, and comprehensive guide for all users.

François Trahan, coordinator 2024 ISC/SCI Ewart-Daveluy Indexing Award, Stephen Ullstrom and Heather Ebbs

Submission deadline: Friday, March 15, 2024

Submissions are open! The application has never been easier.

• It’s all online.
• You don’t need a hard copy — a PDF of the published book AND/OR the PDF sent to you by the publisher plus your Word/RTF file of the index.
• The cost is only $30.

The benefits:

• The winner will receive two tickets to the conference banquet at the next in-person conference.
• We provide feedback for up to three runners-up.

No restriction to the subject matter or genre — textbooks, cookbooks, guidebooks, memoirs, art books, how-to books, travel books, all books — it’s your index we will be looking at.

Show us how you creatively overcame challenges, resulting in an outstanding, well-structured, easy-to-navigate, clear and comprehensive guide for all of its users.

Give us a challenge. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Maybe you’ll get the prize (which won’t happen if you don’t apply). And if not, you’re likely to get expert confidential feedback. That’s worth a lot.

This year you can submit indexes published in 2022 and 2023. If you are a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada, this is the time to do it. If you are not a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, you may submit an index if you were a member of ISC/SCI at the time you wrote the index.

The deadline for submissions is March 15, 2024. Here are the guidelines, criteria, and the submission form.

Submission deadline: Friday, March 15, 2024

Submissions are open! The application has never been easier.

• It’s all online.
• You don’t need a hard copy — a PDF of the published book AND/OR the PDF sent to you by the publisher plus your Word/RTF file of the index.
• The cost is only $30.

The benefits:

• The winner will receive two tickets to the conference banquet at the next in-person conference.
• We provide feedback for up to three runners-up.

No restriction to the subject matter or genre — textbooks, cookbooks, guidebooks, memoirs, art books, how-to books, travel books, all books — it’s your index we will be looking at.

Show us how you creatively overcame challenges, resulting in an outstanding, well-structured, easy-to-navigate, clear and comprehensive guide for all of its users.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Maybe you’ll get the prize (which won’t happen if you don’t apply). And even if you don’t win, you’re very likely to receive expert confidential feedback. That’s worth a lot.

This year you can submit indexes published in 2022 and 2023. If you are a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada, this is the time to do it. If you are not a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, you may submit an index if you were a member of ISC/SCI at the time you wrote the index.

See the Ewart-Daveluy Award page for more information.

The ISC/SCI will not be presenting the Ewart-Daveluy Indexing Award this year. While the committee is pleased with the number of submissions and the diversity of trade and scholarly books, we agreed unanimously that none of the indexes reach the level of excellence that merits the award.

All of the indexes do some things well. Specifically, most of the indexes are clearly structured and easy to navigate, include multiple and relevant access points, are clearly worded, and accurately map the contents of the text. These are qualities we expect in all professional indexes. All of these criteria and more are listed on the ISC/SCI website.

What we are looking for is that elusive quality of elegance. Elegance is that sense that there is an unusual clarity, a memorable ease of use, a succinctness, or even a strikingly simple presentation of difficult ideas. Another view of indexing elegance appears in the criteria for the ASI Excellence in Indexing Award: “Succinctness; the right word in the right place—even if the word isn’t found in the text; a certain ‘charm’; visual appeal; a sense that the index contains exactly what it needs to, no more, no less; simplicity; grace.”

We encourage indexers to strive for elegance. Take the extra time to go over the index once more. Tighten up the phrasing; search for the precise word, and imagine what readers might look for that you have not included. The index does not need to be perfect, but it does need to stand out. Give your index that final polish to make it shine!

Next year we will begin again to look for an elegant index. As you write indexes this year, look for that index that is almost there, the one that needs a bit more care, and then consider giving it the extra polish so that you can send it when submissions open in the fall.

Thank you to those who submitted indexes. As mentioned in the submission form, we will send summaries of our comments and suggestions.