Realize that once you have completed steps 1-4 above, you are still not finished.  Because the document you indexed is large, and may have taken days, weeks or months to index, your mind wasn't in the same place for each paragraph, section and chapter.

 

Here you carefully, slowly review your index.  Test it from the viewpoint of the reader.  Can I find what I am looking for?

 

If you are working with an electronically-generated index (such as is provided by Dr.Explain), test each index entry by double-clicking it, and seeing if you get the results you would be expecting if you were the reader.

 

Although it will seem very tedious, asking this question for each and every index entry, you will discover sometimes the answer is "no" and you will know the corrective action to take to remedy it.  Sometimes doing this will trigger the realization that additional index entries are needed.  Go ahead and create them.  Sometimes (more rarely), you will find that an index entry really isn't needed, or should instead be a "reference" entry (e.g. "wrong_term, see _____").  Go ahead and correct them.

 

Sometimes you will realize that an index entry should also refer to other pages.  Simply add the pages numbers after the existing pages numbers, separated by commas.  Ensure they are in in page-number order.  Example:

 

Frostings

chocolate, p71, 116, 212

 

Sometimes you will realize new ways that the reader will approach finding particular topics.  Add the index entries to help him/her do so.

 

This is all good, all part of the process, and all will result in an index your readers will find extremely useful.