Public Services and Procurement Canada
Symbol of the Government of Canada

Institutional Links

 

Important notice

The Canadian Style has been archived and won’t be updated before it is permanently deleted.

For the most up-to-date content, please consult Writing Tips Plus, which combines content from Writing Tips and The Canadian Style. And don’t forget to update your bookmarks!

Search Canada.ca

9.51 Abbreviations and other reference tools

References to material not contained within the body of the text, such as bibliographies, glossaries, illustrations and tables, require a locator in letters as well as in numbers. The numeral can be printed in boldface type, while the element in letters is presented in italics, usually as an abbreviation:

  • 367 bibliogr.
    • bibliography
  • 54 (fig. 21)
    • figure
  • 345 glos.
    • glossary
  • 68 (fn. 2)
    • footnote
  • 54 ill.
    • illustration
  • 36 (hn.)
    • headnote
  • facing 60
    • plate

When more than one significant reference to an item is made on the same page of a text, and each piece of information is useful, the words bis (twice) and ter (three times) may follow the page number in the index:

  • War of 1812–14, 78 (bis), 87 (ter)

In indexing works with many words on a page, make the reader’s search for information easier by assigning a letter or number to each part of the page. For example, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the letters a, b, c and d refer to the top, upper middle, lower middle and bottom of the left column of a page, and e, f, g and h to the same parts of the right column (23a, 23b, 23c, etc.).

Explain all abbreviations and special reference codes in an introductory note to the index.