THE

Journal of Documentation
VOLUME 46 NUMBER 2 JUNE 1990

RULES OF INDEXING:
A CRITIQUE OF MENTALISM IN INFORMATION
RETRIEVAL THEORY

BERND FROHMANN

School of Library and Information Science

University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, N6G 1H1

A rule-governed derivation of an indexing phrase from the text of a document

is, in Wittgenstein's sense, a practice, rather than a mental operation explained
by reference to internally represented and tacitly known rules. Some mentalistic
proposals for theory in information retrieval are criticised in light of
Wittgenstein's remarks on following a rule. The conception of rules as practices
shifts the theoretical significance of the social role of retrieval practices from the
margins to the centre of enquiry into foundations of information retrieval. The
abstracted notion of a cognitive act of 'information processing' deflects -
attention from fruitful directions of research.

1. MENTALIST PROPOSALS FOR THEORY IN INDEXING

INFORMATION SCIENCE has perhaps more reason to exhibit insecurity

about its identity and theoretical base than many other disciplines[1-3]. But
whatever anxieties attend the effort of staking out a common terrain sufficiently
hospitable to the variety of contenders claiming the title of information
science, some relief must surely be gained from the thought that indexing, or
representing documents for information retrieval, is at least one activity
unique to thefield.It is therefore of some importance that proposals for theory
in indexing be coherently formulated and point the discipline in a promising
direction. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the implications for
indexing of one kind of proposal, often encountered in the literature, for the
proper theoretical orientation of information science.

Journal of Documentation, Vol. 46, No. 2, June 1990, pp. 81-101.

81
JOURNAL OF DOCUMENTATION Vol. 46, no. 2

Indexing is generally taken to consist of at least two distinct operations. The

first involves either the implicit or explicit representation of a document by an
indexing phrase. The second involves the translation of the terms of the
indexing phrase into the lexicon of a controlled indexing vocabulary, with due
regard for the semantics and syntax of the indexing language. Most research
focusses on the second step, while the first continues to be lamented as an
intellectual operation both fundamental to indexing yet so far resistant to
analysis. A typical comment on the current state of affairs appears in a
standard text on subject analysis. Foskett says 'Scanning a text to decide what
it is about is the key operation in indexing, yet it is the least discussed and the
least reducible to rule'[4]. Farradane's comment, although less alarmist, is
nonetheless a reproach to the discipline: 'The indexer's "output" is a stylised
form of "information" whose relationship to the original document needs
more study than it usually receives'[5, p. 13].
It seems obvious enough that the indexer performs an intellectual operation
of some kind in representing the text by means of an indexing phrase. But
exactly what kind of operation? We believe that if we understood its rules, the
benefits would be obvious. Not only would our understanding of a
fundamental operation of information science advance by a quantum leap,
but we may also gain the added bonus of solutions to persistant and
embarrassing problems. A clear distinction, for example, between the essential
core of the indexing operation (perhaps by analogy to thefixedvariables of an
equation) and its merely peripheral fringe (the equation's parameters,
variously set according to individual differences of indexers), might yield a
method for reducing the notorious inconsistency of indexers.
A locus classicus of the view that the theory of information science ought to
be directed toward research aimed at discovering the intellectual operations
peculiar to the discipline may be found in the writings of Jason Farradane[6 -
7]. In developing what he calls the 'picture of the scope of information science
and the nature of the elements with which it deals'[6, p. 75], he writes:

the more we study the two cognitive ends of the picture, that is, the
cognitive processes which produce information, and the cognitive
processes which occur on the receipt of information, the more we may be
able to improve and control the processes of information storage and
retrieval to attain desired results . . . in a large part of its scope
information science is a cognitive science, that is, it deals with thought
processes[6, p.75].

Farradane's picture of the scope of information science derives from a very

natural and familiar picture of minds and thought. Thoughts are mental
processes occurring in minds. Because thoughts arise before language[6, p. 75]
and language is used to express thoughts, albeit often inadequately, thoughts
are only contingently related to language. 'Individual concepts' are elements
of thoughts, and individual words 'are only labels for the concepts dealt with
in the mind'[6, p. 76]. Concepts are connected by 'rules of thought in the mind'

82
June 1990 INDEXING

[6, p. 76], but these rules are not to be confused with grammar and syntax, or
the rules of language, which vary from one language to another. Some of these
rules govern the translation of thought into language[6, p. 76]. But because we
are not aware of our mental processes, we 'do not yet, however, know all the
rules by which thought operates'[6, p. 76]. Their discovery and explicit
expression is the aim of theoretical inquiry. Farradane's relational indexing is
a case in point. It is 'an attempt to simulate the structure of thought'[6, p. 76],
bypassing language, he claims, as far as possible. Although it 'does not
eliminate language altogether'[6, p. 76], 'the structure of language is not being
directly used, and in fact is not useful'[6, p. 76]. Indeed, the study of language
in any theoretical investigation of mental processes is necessary only because
'human beings cannot communicate by direct thought transference, and need
some intermediate medium'[6, p. 76].
The mentalist picture brought into such clear focus by Farradane guides
theory in disciplines other than information science. Theory in linguistics, for
example, is thought to consist in making explicit the rules 'internalised',
'realised', or 'cognised' in the mind (or brain) of a competent speaker.
Although the rules are not consciously known, theorists take them to
represent the speaker's unconscious knowledge of language. They are invoked
to explain the speaker's ability to learn a language and to recognise hitherto
unencountered syntactically well-formed sentences.
In a very useful paper[8], Clare Beghtol applies mentalism in linguistics to
bibliographic classification theory. Van Dijk's discourse analysis offers a
theoretical description of the cognitive operation of understanding the subject
of a text in terms of unconsciously followed mental rules. The derivation from
a text of representations of its subject or 'aboutness', is of course highly
relevant to the first, most fundamental step of the indexing process. The
mentalist picture of the process is sketched in the following remarks:

The ability to restate the semantic aboutness of a discourse... originates

in an automatic reductive cognitive process of summarisation that
allows a reader to construct during reading a notion of the text topic and
to store it in hierarchically-arranged memory structures for later
recollection.... During the act of reading a text the reader notices the
presentation of each sentence, automatically transforms its surface
verbal structures into its deep conceptual propositions and establishes
an understanding of the logical relationships between the words and
sentences of the text At the same time, the reader engages in a global,
textual or macro-level analysis of the text in order to arrive at an overall
understanding of the aboutness and meaning of the complete text as a
whole. . . . These cognitive actions of compressing a text in order to
generate a semantically accurate statement of discourse aboutness are,
according to Van Dijk, governed by macro-rules One may say that
the subject of a document is the highest specific macroproposition that is
produced and can be expressed by a reader during cognitive reduction of
a text by microanalysis Van Dijk has formally described and analysed

83
JOURNAL OF DOCUMENTATION Vol. 46, no. 2

a cognitive process that can be assumed to operate during the aboutness

analysis of a text for the purpose of classifying it by means of a particular
classification system[8, pp. 90, 92].'

Beghtol is guided by this picture in her design of a research programme for

bibliographic classification theory. The aim is the discovery and precise
specification, with the aid of Van Dijk's mentalism, of the rules governing
intellectual or cognitive processes peculiar to classification. Typical questions
for research are: 'What is one learning to do when one learns to classify
documents? What cognitive processes operate in classifying?. . . . The
differences between using a natural and a classificatory language . . . must be
accounted for in a theoretical description of the cognitive process of
classifying documents by means of a particular classification system'[8, pp.
100, 101]. The project consists in bringing the unconscious into consciousness.
The Freudian dictumfits;where id was, there ego shall be.
The mentalist picture applies just as easily to indexing. According to it, the
most fundamental intellectual operation of indexing is, in principle, explicable
by internally realised and tacitly known rules that generate an indexing phrase
from a given text. It seems that there must be some rules guiding the mental
activities of indexers, for otherwise it becomes impossible to explain how they
are able to utter or to write down an indexing phrase for the text. The problem
is to discover the precise form of these rules.
The explanatory power of internally realised and tacitly known mental rules
depends upon the assumption that they operate as internal guidance systems
determining our actions. An internally realised and tacitly known rule has no
explanatory power without the assumption that the rule generates its own
applications. For example, our derivation of '3' from '1+2' is taken to be
explained by invoking the mental rule of addition that generates, in the mind,
the mental representation of 3 from the mental representation of 1 +2. By
analogy, mentalism in indexing assumes that the derivation of indexing
phrases from texts is explained by invoking mental rules that automatically
generate the mental representations of indexing phrases from mental
representations of texts. Borrowing the power of a mathematical metaphor,
the derivation of an indexing phrase from a text may be represented as the
computation of a function of the form S=f(T), where S is the indexing
phrase, and T is the text. The mathematical trope brings theory's quarry into
clear focus by giving schematic form to the elusive mental rule. It throws the
shadow, as it were, of the body sought. Theory advances by throwing light on
the body of the rule, for until the precise rule of the form S=f(T) is
discovered, we have no explanation of how we perform the derivations of
indexing phrases.
James D. Anderson[9] is in the vanguard of library science's appropriation
of mentalism by boldly representing the mind as a library, complete with a
technical services department performing indexing operations of which, at
least until we have read Anderson, we are completely unaware. He confidently
asserts some astonishing and hitherto unknown facts about our mental

84
June 1990 INDEXING

machinery. According to Anderson, 'the most complicated and sophisticated

indexing system of all, which humans develop unconsciously in their own
minds'[9, p. 288] functions to index 'brain documents' of 'interconnected
neurons'[9, p. 294]. Some outlines of his picture follow:

Indexing systems turn information storage and communication systems

into information retrieval systems analogous, in widely varying degrees,
to the human information retrieval system of the mind[9, pp. 287-288].
. . . the mind of a human indexer . . . receives the symbols via normal
perception processes, matches them against those stored in the mind,
determines what concepts are represented and which are important, then
chooses symbols to represent these concepts in the index[9, p. 295]. . . .
Just as a well selected library is very discriminating in choosing what to
add to its permanent collection, the mind selects only a small portion of
its perceptions for processing into long-term memory. . . . It is this
selected and stored information which is indexed by the mind as part of
its information retrieval system[9, pp. 292, 293]. . . . Just as a well-run
library will discard documents no longer needed, the human mind will
forget information which, although indexed initially into long-term
memory, was of less importance when received and therefore indexed
less thoroughly[9, p. 293]. . . . The human mind is like a library collection
or a full-text database in that its documents are included in its indexing
system in full, not represented by abbreviated surrogates.... the mind
does not store the original texts . . . which it processes . . . Instead, from
the mass of information perceived, it selects the information (concepts
and their relations) of interest and creates new 'documents' which are
integrated into its semantic memory. It is the full text of these new
documents which the mind stores and indexes[9, p. 134].

The mentalist picture driving research proposals is taken for granted even
when not as explicitly foregrounded as by Farradane, Beghtol or Anderson.
Bivins, for example, asserts that 'What is needed is the simulation of the
cognitive processes of the user in the information system'[10, p. 36] and 'it is
probably necessary to start from this approach in order to improve retrieval
systems'[10, p. 37]. The point seems equally obvious to Artandi[11], who asks
'Do we know enough about how we behave when we say we are thinking that
we can describe the process explicitly for the machine?' The behaviour in
question is clearly not such characteristic 'thinking behaviours' as scratching
one's head, looking puzzled, saying something sotto voce, or the like. Her
recommendation for research and theory suggests that 'how we behave when
we say we are thinking' refers to activities carried out 'in the mind'. Progress in
theory for the young science of information is taken to lie in the direction of
'the understanding of the human processes that the machine is to duplicate'
[11, p. 235].
Other, less explicit formulations betray a more subtle influence of the
mentalist picture. How else to explain the egregious but common confusion of

85
JOURNAL OF DOCUMENTATION Vol. 46, no. 2

text or document representation with knowledge representation except on

mentalistic assumptions about the form representations take in the mind? In a
typical example, Vickery in his discussion of knowledge representation[12]
conflates a document's knowledge-claims and the other kinds of statement it
may contain. He says that 'documentation is primarily concerned with . . .
knowledge' and that the 'representation of knowledge in symbolic form has
pre-occupied the world of documentation since its origin.' Foskett also
equates information retrieval with knowledge retrieval by defining
information in terms of knowledge[4, pp. 1-2].
But the equation of text representation with knowledge representation is
simply a howler. Text representation has, perhaps unfortunately if we agree
with Patrick Wilson[13], little to do with knowledge, as a moment's reflection
shows. Since 'A knows p' implies 'p is true', restricting the concerns of
documentation to representation of knowledge necessarily restricts it to texts
containing only true statements. It does not need saying that such texts
comprise a very small fraction of the world's documents. In representing
documents for retrieval, indexers do not, even if they could, select only those
stating the truth. Furthermore, only an expression with the grammatical form
of a statement can be true or false. Indexing phrases cannot be true or false
since they do not have the requisite grammatical form. Hence no indexing
phrase represents knowledge. It represents a text that, for all that we can tell
from the form of the indexing phrase, may express falsehoods, may ask
questions, offer rules or instructions, or may simply vent spleen. Lies and
disinformation are as routinely represented for retrieval as are truth and
information, as the existence of newspaper and periodical indexes readily
attest. Documentation simply bypasses knowledge and truth.
Mentalism's picture of the contents of minds, however, biases theory in
favour of knowledge because mental contents are assumed to take a
propositional form. Since mental contents are believed to be representations,
it comes naturally to take facts as what is represented. Mental contents are
therefore taken to be, like statements that such-and-such is the case, structures
capable of truth or falsehood. A fixation on propositional forms can be
broken by attention to the large variety of linguistic forms found in actual
documents, but breaking the spell requires abandoning mentalism altogether.
Farradane makes the connection between mentalism and knowledge
explicit in his definition of knowledge. He says '"knowledge" is defined
as a memorable record of a process in the brain', demonstrating a courageous
indifference to the fact that very few of us beyond those requiring a brain scan
have ever been acquainted with a record, memorable or otherwise, of
processes in their own brain. He goes on to define information in terms of
knowledge:' "Information" is defined as a physical surrogate of knowledge
(e.g. language) used for communication.' Confusion mounts as we try to
understand this pronouncement. What is a physical surrogate of a memorable
record of a brain process? Is it a printout of my brain scan? But if the printout
is the surrogate, what is the record? The picture on the video monitor? And
what has any of this to do with knowledge? It would be unedifying to press

86
June 1990 INDEXING

such inquiries further; they are noted here merely to indicate the firm grip of
the mentalist picture.

2. WITTGENSTEIN'S CRITICISM

Farradane has suggested[6] that the 'picture' of mental rules as internal

guidance systems provides a sound basis for theory in information retrieval.
Wittgenstein's remarks on following a rule[14, 15] suggest otherwise.
Although his philosophy has received some attention in the information
science literature[16-18], his remarks about rules have not been applied to
information retrieval theory. Exegesis and defence of Wittgenstein's remarks,
readily available in the philosophical literature[19-25], are beyond the scope
of this paper. The aim here is to identify some of Wittgenstein's arguments and
conclusions about rule-following in order to draw out their implications for
theory in information retrieval.
One of Wittgenstein's methods in philosophy is to expose the illusions
lurking in our ordinary language that become full-blown when we come to
reflect on the words we use. He says 'When we do philosophy we are like
savages, primitive people, who hear the expressions of civilized men, put a
false interpretation on them, and then draw the queerest conclusions from it'
[14, §194]. This remark suggests questions to guide the following discussion of
his comments on rule-following. What are 'the expressions of civilised men' in
speaking about rules? What is the false interpretation we put on them, and
what are the queer conclusions we draw from it?
Baker and Hacker, in their very useful work on the critical implications of
Wittgenstein's remarks on following a rule, point out that 'the verb "to rule" is
related to a large family incorporating "to guide", "to direct", "to instruct",
"to prescribe", "to influence", "to determine"'[19, p. 250]. We use rules to
justify our actions, we use them as standards to assess correctness or
incorrectness, and we use them in teaching and training. In all these uses', we
commonly say that our actions are guided by rules, that the rule determines
what we are to do, that someone is under the influence of a rule, or is directed by
it, that it governs his or her actions, and so on. The reason for saying that the
rule determines our actions or that it guides us is that we draw conclusions
from a rule, as Wittgenstein puts it, as a matter of course, 'as much as it is a
matter of course for me to call this colour "blue"'[14, §238]. We do not
hesitate upon being given a rule: 'One does not feel that one has always got to
wait upon the nod (the whisper) of the rule. On the contrary, we are not on
tenterhooks about what it will tell us next, but it always tells us the same, and
we do what it tells us'[14, §223]. We do not need anything other than the rule to
tell us what the rule says, what is in accord with it, because the rule itself does
that: 'we look to the rule for instruction and do something, without appealing
to anything else for guidance'[14, §228]. The point of appeal to the rule is to
settle how to go on:' "The line intimates to me which way I am to go" is only a
paraphrase of: it is my last arbiter for the way I am to go'[14, §230]. In short, it
is a fact about human beings that upon being given a rule, whether in the form

87
JOURNAL OF DOCUMENTATION Vol. 46, no. 2

of a verbal command, a written statement, a drawn pattern or paradigm, a

sign-post, a gesture, and a host of other formulations, they can go directly on
to perform actions called 'in accord with the rule'. Given this fact, it is natural
to say that rules guide us, or that they determine or govern our actions. These
expressions and others like them are 'the expressions of civilised men' in
speaking about rules.
Wittgenstein says that a major source of confusion in philosophy is the
belief that every word of our language must stand for something. What, we
wonder, does the word 'rule' stand for? Our answer is guided by the
expressions we use in speaking about rules. It appears to be an important
truth, for example, that rules guide and determine our actions. Our talk about
being guided and determined by rules readily conjures up a picture of
mysterious entities that somehow generate results in accordance with them,
quite independently of us. It is as if, in understanding the verbal or written
expressions of rules, we set in motion a logical engine whose nature it is to
crank out correct results. As a façon de parler, this picture is merely a harmless
way of registering our ordinary practices with rules, such as using them as
justifications, as instruments of training, as the last arbiters of what is in
accord with them, and so on. But as a philosophical picture of the nature of
rules, it leads to conceptual confusions. Since this kind of picture is embedded
in our language, Wittgenstein calls it a grammatical fiction.
Rules in use are hardly mysterious. I look at a sign-post and go in the
direction indicated. But the grammaticallyfictitiouspicture of rules represents
them as mysterious mental entities. For rules are certainly not identical with
their verbal or written expression. We speak about the expression of a rule,
and we translate rules from one language to another. And the sign-post itself
cannot determine how I am to go, because as a mere physical object, it is
capable of various interpretations. But if the sign-post as physical object
doesn't do the determining, it is natural to think that the sign-post as meant, as
understood, or as interpreted, does. In grasping the meaning of the expression
of the rule, it is often thought that I apprehend, cognise, internally represent,
or am mentally in touch with an entity that, unlike the physical sign-post,
uniquely determines what is in accordance with it. Although the mere expression
of the rule is capable of further interpretation, the expression's meaning, what
it stands for, that is, what is taken to be the rule itself, is the last and final
interpretation. It is the logical engine which, unlike a physical engine which
sometimes breaks down and fails to perform as expected, never fails to crank out
only what is in accordance with the rule. Wittgenstein acknowledges the force
of the metaphor in his comments about the order to continue the + 2 series:

Here I should like first of all to say: your idea was that that act of
meaning the order had in its own way already traversed all those steps:
that when you meant it your mind as it wereflewahead and took all the
steps before you physically arrived at this or that one.
Thus we were inclined to use such expressions as 'The steps are really
already taken, even before I take them in writing or orally or in thought.'

88
June 1990 INDEXING

And it seemed as if they were in some unique way pre-determined,

anticipated - as only the act of meaning can anticipate reality[14, §188].

We use expressions such as 'The right step is the one that accords with the
order - as it was meant', or 'But I already knew, at the time when I gave the
order, that he ought to write 1002 after 1000'. Wittgenstein writes in response:

Certainly: and you can also say you meant it then; only you should
not let yourself be misled by the grammar of the words 'know' and
'mean'. For you don't want to say that you thought of the step from 1000
to 1002 at that time - and even if you did think of this step, still you did
not think of other ones. When you said 'I already knew at the time . . . '
that meant something like: 'If I had been asked what number should be
written after 1000, I should have replied "1002"'. And that I don't
doubt[14, §187].

The grammar of 'mean' suggests that meaning a rule is a mental operation

resulting in a (yet to be explained) mental apprehension of something like a
symbol, but with the crucial difference that it determines its own application.
Once again, Wittgenstein acknowledges the force of the question: 'But are the
steps then not determined by the algebraic formula?' He replies: 'The question
contains a mistake', and elaborates by recognising two senses of 'The steps are
determined by the formula...'. This expression can be used to contrast people
who have been trained in the use of, e.g. 'add 3' and who agree in their results,
with people 'who do not know what they are to do on receiving this order, or
who react to it with perfect certainty, but each one in a different way'. We may
say, about the first group, 'for these people the order "add 3" completely
determines every step from one number to the next'. Or we might use the
expression 'The steps are determined by the formula . . .' to distinguish
formulae which determine a unique number y for a given value of x (such as
y=x2) from those that do not (such as y>x2). But the formula does not
determine the steps in the peculiar way suggested by the grammaticalfictionof
the logical engine; it is our grammar which suggests a peculiar kind of
determining. The picture of a rule automatically, as it were, generating in the
medium of the mind results in accordance with it is the 'false interpretation'
put on 'the expressions of civilised men'.
Wittgenstein says that we 'draw the queerest conclusions' from our false
interpretation. One 'queer conclusion' we draw from it is that our internally
represented rule explains how we bridge the gap from its expression to action
in accordance with it. How do I know that I should write '1002' after '1000' in
expanding the + 2 series? Well, I grasp the rule represented by ' + 2', and it
determines what I am to do. It generates the next term after 1000, and I
(unconsciously) read it off. I then (also unconsciously) translate what I read off
as '1002'. The internally represented rule, as an object of my (tacit) knowledge,
is invoked in an explanation of my ability to bridge the gap from apprehension
of the physical symbol ' + 2' to the act of writing '1002' after '1000'. The notion

89
JOURNAL OF DOCUMENTATION Vol. 46, no. 2

that a system of rules is an explanatory theory of intelligent behaviour is not far

behind. From the 'queer conclusion' of the mental rule's explanatory role, it is
a short step to research projects aimed at discovering the unconsciously
known rules that explain how people recognise grammatical sentences, how
they reason, and, relevant to the concerns of this paper, how they derive
indexing phrases from texts.
Wittgenstein quickly deflates the explanatory role of alleged mental entities:

What really comes before our mind when we understand a word?- Isn't it
something like a picture? Can't it be a picture?
Well, suppose that a picture does come before your mind when you
hear the word 'cube', say the drawing of a cube. In what sense can this
picture fit or fail to fit a use of the word 'cube'? - Perhaps you say: 'It's
quite simple; - if that picture occurs to me and I point to a triangular
prism for instance, and say it is a cube, then this use of the word doesn't
fit the picture'. - But doesn't it fit? I have purposely so chosen the
example that it is quite easy to imagine a method of projection according
to which the picture does fit after all.
The picture of the cube did indeed suggest a certain use to us, but it
was possible for me to use it differently[14, §139].

Wittgenstein's example is meant to show that even if a mental entity (even

assuming that we know what such a thing might be) were associated with a
symbol of our language, it cannot bridge the gap between symbol and action,
because the gap reappears between the associated mental entity, whatever it
may be, and action in accordance with it. Our explanation of the seemingly
unguided jump from formula to its correct application invokes the equally
unguided jump from internal (and unconscious!) apprehension of the rule,
with all its applications laid out, to its correct application. If there is no need
for an explanation of the jump from internal representation to action in
accordance with it, then there can be no need for an explanation of the jump
from the formula to its application. On the other hand, if we do need an
explanation of the jump from internal representation to action in accordance
with it, then we face an infinite regress of mental representations. The
unguided jump from internal representation to action now requires another
representation to guide it, and so on, ad infinitum. The purported explanation
by means of mental intermediaries collapses.
It is obvious that physical pictures do not determine their own application.
But mental pictures (or 'representations', in the current jargon) seem to
be unlike physical pictures just in the respect of determining what is
in accordance with them. Wittgenstein's discussion shows that the notion
of a mental picture is simply that of a physical picture with the added
magical property of being the last interpretation, of reaching right out to
reality all by itself. But it is not as if we are familiar with pictures that cannot be
further interpreted, and have discovered that mental representations are
among them. (Wittgenstein: 'Is there such a thing as a picture, or something

90
June 1990 INDEXING

like a picture, that forces a particular application on us; so that my mistake lay
in confusing one picture with another?'[14, §140]. Instead, the notion that
mental pictures, unlike ordinary pictures, are not subject to interpretation is a
superstition. Purported explanations of intellectual operations in terms of tacit
knowledge of internally represented rules are not false but incoherent. The
notion of mental rules generating their own applications is an illusion.
Wittgenstein writes that our grasp of rules does not consist in our associating
with them either pictures, mental representations, or interpretations, but is
exhibited in what we do: 'there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an
interpretation, but which is exhibited in what we call "obeying the rule" and
"going against it" in actual cases'[14, §210]. Our reaction to a rule, whether to
its written or spoken expression or to a picture, an interpretation, or any other
associated representation, is the criterion of our understanding it:

'How am I to obey a rule?' - if this is not a question about causes, then it

is about the justification for my following the rule in the way I do.
If I have exhausted the justifications I have reached bedrock, and my
spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: 'This is simply what I do'[14,
§217)].
When I obey a rule, I do not choose.
I obey the rule blindly[14, §219].

It is a fact about human beings that we act on orders and rules, in the
massive majority of cases without any deliberation or thought. Our actions are
as spontaneous as our reaction to a pointing gesture by looking in the
direction from shoulder to finger-tip rather than from finger-tip to shoulder.
Without these reactions, there would be no such thing as following a rule. But
following a rule would also be impossible if all our reactions were different.
Hence:

To obey a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of

chess, are customs (uses, institutions). To understand a sentence means
to understand a language. To understand a language means to be master
of a technique[14, §199].
The word 'agreement' and the word 'rule' are related to one another,
they are cousins. If I teach anyone the use of the one word, he learns the
use of the other with it[14, §244].
Disputes do not break out (among mathematicians, say) over the
question whether a rule has been obeyed or not. People don't come to
blows over it, for example. That is part of the framework on which the
working of our language is based (for example, in giving descriptions)
[14, §240].

When Wittgenstein says that following a rule is a practice, a technique, or a

custom, he emphasises that the criteria of following a rule are public.

91
JOURNAL OF DOCUMENTATION Vol. 46, no. 2

Following a rule cannot consist in the possession of internal representations

generating their own applications in the recesses of the mind because the
mental arena excludes public criteria. Baker and Hacker make the point in
their gloss on Wittgenstein: 'Putatively innate rules or rules realized in neural
mechanisms cannot be followed (for there is no way to determine what would
count as following, as the rules are hidden from us .. .)'[20, pp. 62-63]. The
notion of a theory or explanation of our intelligent behaviour in terms of
internally represented rules collapses together with the mentalist notion of
rule-following.
Since following a rule is a practice and practices are necessarily public, rules
arefirmlyembedded in social life. Indeed, the identity of the practice of a rule
(or system of rules) depends upon its role in social life. Wittgenstein makes the
point in the following parable:

. . . now imagine a game of chess translated according to certain rules

into a series of actions which we do not ordinarily associate with a
game - say into yells and stamping of feet. And now suppose . . . two
people to yell and stamp instead of playing the form of chess that we are
used to; and this in such a way that their procedure is translatable by
suitable rules into a game of chess. Should we still be inclined to say they
were playing a game? What right would one have to say so?[14, §200]

One has a right to say they are playing a game only if the yells and stampings
play the same role in their life as making of moves ofgames play in our life. The
fact that their actions can be described by our chess notation, or translated
into rules of the game we call 'chess', does not constitute their playing a game
of chess. They do not follow the rules of chess unless the point, purposes,
intentions, aims, ends and strategies of their rules are the same or similar to
those of chess in our life. Wittgenstein makes the same point by another
example. If a tribe of people use what we call mathematical formulae to no
other purpose than decorating walls, they are not following rules of
mathematics, even if they derive results we call correct[26, pp. 39-40]. A final
example comes from a commentator on Wittgenstein[27]. If a tribe of people
move pieces like our chess pieces on a board like our chess-boards according to
rules we call the rules of chess, yet their activity is a solemn religious rite, they
do not play a game of chess. Their practice of the rules is embedded in their
social life in ways so different from ours that they do not even play a game.
Reminders such as these that following a rule is a practice, a custom, or a
technique, directs reflection to the social context of rules. The role in our form
of life of our practice of a rule is not accidental or contingent, but is instead one
of its necessary features. It settles the identity of the practice of the rule.
The upshot of Wittgenstein's remarks is that rule-following is a matter of
reacting to a sign, a symbol, a drawing, a gesture, a formula, or the countless
other members of the large family of rules, in ways we call, according to public
criteria, 'in accordance with the rule'. Among the various uses of rules is their
employment as standards of correctness; if someone goes on incorrectly (for

92
June 1990 INDEXING

example, by writing 1004 after 1000 given the ' + 2' rule), we cite the rule ('You
were meant to do this'). In addition, rules are used as justifications; asked for
the reasons for our actions, we cite our rule. Rules are also used as instruments
of training and instruction. Hence rules are properly seen as instruments of
practices. Since a rule is always a rule of a practice, to understand the rule
requires a description of the role of its practice in our form of life. Rules are
instruments used in public life, and not mysterious agents, operating silently,
invisibly and unbeknownst to us, far behind the fleeting scenes of our
consciousness.

3. RETRIEVAL PRACTICES

The dangers of the research proposals canvassed in section 1 might be thought

to be slight indeed, on the grounds that philosophical rigour is irrelevant to the
practical business of designing more effective information retrieval systems.
And there is indeed considerable justification for agnosticism by practical folk
on philosophical questions. After all, abstract systems of great elegance,
power, and utility, in both information science and other disciplines, are
developed either on the assumption that they represent tacitly known rules or
in complete indifference to philosophical debate on the issue. Russell and
Whitehead's Principia mathematica[28] and Chomsky's linguistics[29-31] are
cases in point.
The motivation for Russell's and Whitehead's calculus, which was intended
to permit arithmetical statements to be rewritten using only signs for logical
primitives, was epistemological, replacing the unproven and dubious arith-
metical premises of their era with indisputable logical axioms. The intention
was never to make explicit our arithmetical 'mental representations', or to
represent rules taken to be unconsciously followed in performing arithmetical
calculations. But it would have made no difference to the system if mentalism of
this sort had been the motivation. The rules of Principia mathematica may be
used to rewrite arithmetical statements no matter how they are described. Their
utility, mostly unforeseen, such as in the design of calculating machines, is also
independent of their metatheoretical description.
The motivation for Chomsky's calculus, on the other hand, is a mentalism
that interprets theoretical linguistics as a representation of a competent
speaker's knowledge of language. But as with Principia mathematica, the
consistency and internal structure of the system, as an algebra, is independent
of its description. The correct operation of the calculus cannot depend on its
metatheoretical description, because no metatheoretical propositions are
premises of proofs or derivations. Its practical utility is likewise independent
of its description. It may be used as a notation to describe the grammars of
various languages without the assumption that a grammar represents tacit
knowledge, internalised rules, or biological structures, just as arithmetical
notation may be used to keep accounts of my personalfinanceswithout taking
sides on Platonist versus constructivist metamathematical controversies
about the reference of numerals.

93
JOURNAL OF DOCUMENTATION Vol. 46, no. 2

But if systems of rules with practical applications for retrieval systems in

information science are likewise logically independent of their metatheoretical
interpretation, then wherein lies the harm of the mentalist picture? Its danger
lies not in building systems onflawedfoundations, but in its power to deflect
attention from theoretical problems central to the development of effective
information retrieval systems. I suggest that mentalism conceals fruitful
directions of enquiry in at least thefivefollowing areas.
First and foremost, it conceals problems pertaining to the construction of
rules. This paper assumes that information retrieval systems depend at a
preliminary stage of their development upon rules governing the derivation of
indexing phrases from texts. Wittgenstein's remarks on rules shift indexing
theory away from rule discovery and toward rule construction. By Wittgen-
stein's lights, indexing rules governing the derivation of indexing phrases from
texts are properly seen as instruments of particular social practices. Theory in
indexing is therefore confronted with the challenge, not of discovering rules
followed unconsciously, but of constructing, consistent with stated purposes,
explicit, well-formulated, and strict rules which may be used to yield indexing
phrases from texts. The problem of indexer inconsistency, for example, is not
solved by first discovering and then bringing order to the motley of tacitly
known rules unconsciously followed by indexers, but by replacing prevailing
vague rules, for example, those providing no more guidance than 'express' the
subject of this text in a concise statement', which indexers perforce interpret
variously, with rules sufficiently precise to serve as justifications, as standards
of correctness, and as instruments of indexer training.
The shift from rule discovery to rule construction implies corresponding
methodological reorientations. Rule construction, unlike rule discovery, is
only contingently rather than necessarily related to observation of indexing
behaviour. Once the assumption that intellectual operations consist in
unconsciously following mental rules is abandoned, there is no reason to
suppose that observation of indexersflounderingin the absence of strict rules
is especially relevant to the task at hand, that is, of formulating new and better
rules. Observations of unruly indexing may of course prove useful to
instruction in new practices in the way that revelations of bad old habits often
assist pedagogy. But observation is not the royal road to the object of inquiry,
which is to propose what ought to be done. Since indexing rules are, in William
Cooper's words, 'normative criteria that ought to govern human and
automatic indexing'[32, p. 108], a central theoretical problem is to provide a
rationale for any proposed rule. Whether or not one agrees with Cooper's
proposed indexing rules (see his controversy with Wilson[33, 34]), their
theoretical base is nonetheless exemplary, because his explicit recognition of
rules as instruments of training and as standards of evaluation locates them
within a conception of rule-following as a practice, a custom, or a technique.
Some of his comments are directly relevant to the methodological importance
of the observation of indexing behaviour:

Some of the studies have had the character of an investigation of how

professional indexers currently do index, rather than how they should

94
June 1990 INDEXING
index The upshot is that there is as yet no consensus among experts
about the answers to even some of the most basic questions of what
indexers ought to be told to do or of how an indexer's performance
should be evaluated[32, p. 107].

Second, mentalism conceals legitimate rules formulated in disciplines

outside the mentalist paradigm. Attention is focussed on rules formulated in
disciplines that (mis)interpret their constructed rules as discoveries of hitherto
hidden mental machinery. But the rules formulated by, for example, cognitive
scientists and theoretical linguists are no less their own constructions for all
their mentalistic metatheoretical descriptions. Consequently, they have no
greater theoretical claim on information science than the rules information
scientists construct themselves, or those they appropriate from disciplines
even further afield, to achieve the specific practical purposes of their discipline.
We may, for example, agree with Beghtol about the significance to informa-
tion science of van Dijk's five 'macrorules' ('the Weak Deletion Rule; the
Strong Deletion Rule; the Zero Rule; the Generalisation Rule; and the
Construction Rule'[8, p. 90]), but our justification is their utility in deriving
subject statements from texts and not, as she supposes, their status as hidden
rules of our mental processes. Mentalism in information retrieval conceals the
fundamental equality of all rule systems by privileging those taking the
theoretical high ground of rules of the mind. But, since utility is independent of
metatheoretical description, useful rules may be found in unlikely places. The
illusions of mentalism deflect attention away from systems equally worthy as
candidates for solutions to specific problems.
Third, mentalism conceals the text. Should mentalism even admit the
independent existence of the text itself, it rarely considers it to be identical with
what it takes to be the true object of inquiry, its representation in the mind of
the reader. The discovery of mental rules of 'text processing' rather than
structural properties of the text itself becomes the aim of investigation. Yet
those structural properties yield criteria of significance for parts of the text
relevant to the construction of indexing phrases.
Some of these criteria are intratextual, defining significant elements of a
single text relative to the text's internal structures. Logical and rhetorical
structures, together with others that contribute to the identification of a text's
subject, are important to information retrieval systems relying on subject
analysis and representation. Texts with a strong logical structure display clear
distinctions between theorems, hypotheses, premises, arguments, conclusions,
evidence, etc., revealing central and peripheral, or major and minor themes.
Texts relying less on logical than on rhetorical structures nonetheless display
more or less clear distinctions between persuasive means and ends, thereby
also revealing differences between a text's centre and its margins. Other
structures have also proved important to the identification of significance for
indexing and abstracting. For example, anaphoric relations and other kinds of
semantic interrelationships have been studied by Craven[35-37], by Rush,
Salvador and Zamora[38], and by Liddy, Bonzi, Katzer and Oddy[39, 40].

95
JOURNAL OF DOCUMENTATION Vol. 46, no. 2

The uses of discourse analysis have been investigated by Dea and Belkin[41].
Research into these and other textual structures that might provide the basis
of rules for the derivations of indexing phrases need no defence against
mentalism's requirement that the structures investigated be capable of
description as our internal representations of the text.
Fourth, mentalism conceals relations between texts. Like intratextual
criteria of significance, intertextual criteria may also reveal structures
providing a basis for indexing rules. Intertextual criteria define significant
elements of one text in relation to some other text. Significant textual elements
defined by each set of criteria may not be identical. For example, a part of a
text may be neither a logically central theorem nor a hypothesis, neither the
premise nor the conclusion of a central argument, and it may not state
arguments or conclusions that are even peripherally related to the logically
central theme. Yet it may state a proposition that is significant in the context of
the author's other works or in the context of scholarship on the subject.
Bertrand Russell's use in one of his political papers of his concept of definite
descriptions merely as an illustration rather than as the subject of a central
argument is sufficiently significant for inscription in a subject statement in
indexing his Collected papers because the concept is central in other major
Russell texts. These intertextual criteria are concealed by mentalism's focus on
the supposed mental rules for 'processing' a single text. Intertextuality is
limited by mentalism to the membership of several texts in the same class by
virtue of their 'mental processing' yielding 'subjects' or 'aboutnesses'[8, p. 95].
But mentalism does not allow that the significance of a part of a text may be
constituted by another text. Research aimed at explicating intertextual criteria
of significance should also not be retarded by mentalism's unduly narrow
focus.
Fifth, mentalism's focus on processes occurring in minds conceals the
crucial social context of rules. Since we do not understand the rule we are
constructing without understanding its social context, or the way it is
embedded in the social world, its point, its purpose, the intentions and
interests it serves, in short, the social role of its practice, indexing theory
cannot avoid investigation into the historical, economic, political, and social
context of the rules in its domain. Mentalism, on the other hand, either erases
the social dimension altogether by conceiving rules as operating in disembodied,
ahistorical, classless, genderless, and universal minds, or else acknowledges it
only by expanding the set of rules of mental processing. Beghtol, for example,
following van Dijk, allows that the unconscious rules of text processing may
include some determined by individual differences and culture[8, pp. 98-101].
But these particular rules are conceived merely as additions to our mental
equipment. As mental effects, caused perhaps by the interaction of mind and
the world, they are not conceived as instruments we construct in order to
institute particular practices, and are therefore, like the rules of universal
minds, outside the realm of deliberate change and willed construction.
Many consequences follow from the disclosure of the social context of rules.
Questions of justification return to centre stage from the margins of etiquette

96
June 1990 INDEXING

and conscience. According to mentalism, rules can have no justification

because they are simply given pieces of our mental equipment, whether they
are innate and universal, or effects and particular. It makes no sense to
question whether they ought to be followed, or what the value of their practice
might be. But when rules are conceived normatively, as instruments
constructed for use in practices, it not only makes sense to question their
purposes, whether and to what degree they fulfil them, whether they ought to
be modified better to fulfil them or some other ends, whether they ought to be
cancelled because their purposes have become obsolete or undesirable, and so
on, but it also becomes necessary to ask such questions in order to understand
the rule itself. Indexing theory cannot escape critical inquiry. Indeed,
mentalism's own scientist, referentialist, and universalist posture itself
becomes an object of theoretical reflection: what, and whose, intentions are
served by championing universal rules of 'mental text processing' for the
production of indexing phrases for use in a stratified social world?
Rules of indexing are rules of text representation for the purpose of text
retrieval. But text retrieval designates a set of particular social practices.
Consequently, the construction of indexing rules institutes or facilitates
particular kinds of retrieval practices and depends, therefore, upon a
preliminary understanding of the social practices constituting text retrieval in
the actual, historically real social world.
This preliminary understanding is theoretically rigorous only if made
explicit by answers to questions designed to clarify the social role of retrieval
practices. These questions are similar to those proposed for theoretical rigour
in information science generally:

Who needs information? What sort of information do different groups

or the population as a whole need? Why do they need it? Who decides
what is needed by whom? Who selects and presents what is provided?
What are the aims and intentions of the providers? What use is made of
what is provided? What are the consequences of that use for individuals,
groups, institutions and societies? Could what is functional for one
group be dysfunctional for others, or for society as a whole? What
criteria are used in determining what is functional or dysfunctional?[42,
p. 28] . . . These questions and problems - central to the terms of
reference of the mass communication researcher - are rarely raised by
the librarian or information scientist[42, p. 28-9].

Some of the questions specific to text retrieval return us to familiar ground.

What are the purposes of text retrieval in various social contexts and of
various kinds of users? The problems involved in constructing rules for
indexing languages incorporating the categories of the dominant social
institutions of industry, research and development, commerce and finance,
universities and the like, are not identical to those involved in designing text
retrieval services for marginal groups outside the dominant institutions, such
as the economically disadvantaged or the victims of racial, class or gender

97
JOURNAL OF DOCUMENTATION Vol. 46, no. 2

discrimination. Not only are text retrieval practices of the socially, economic-
ally and politically marginalised more difficult to discern, but also the
construction of indexing rules aimed at meeting their needs may quite
explicitly become part of the exercise of building new and alternative social
practices.
Some questions demand critical inquiry. Does text retrieval fulfil a need, or
does it satisfy a want? Indexing rules will look quite different depending upon
how this question is answered. Wants are explicitly recognised and admitted;
they reflect the agents' goals, purposes, and intentions. Not all needs are
known, and someflyin the face of wants. For example, not everyone knows
what they need to prevent AIDS, and not everyone wants what they need.
Identification of needs depends upon a conception of human nature and the
social world; wants can be identified by questionnaire. If want satisfaction
alone is considered the end of text retrieval, then most indexing rules will serve
the retrieval practices of the prevailing form of social organisation. Among the
important indexing rules for want satisfaction in consumer capitalism, for
example, are those which efficiently represent goods for consumption. On the
other hand, if text retrieval is taken to fulfil needs, then rules for its practice
may not only be inconsistent with the aims of the dominant social order, but
may also be antagonistic to them.
Other questions demand political analyses. What and whose aims, goals,
strategies, and intentions are fulfilled by text retrieval in the social world in
which indexes, abstracts, online databases, catalogues, thesauri, biblio-
graphies and the whole range of retrieval apparatus make their appearance? Is
the retrieval of truth a desirable (or even feasible) retrieval practice, as Patrick
Wilson[13] has suggested? If so, this purpose imposes a serious constraint on
the kind of indexing rules governing the derivation of indexing phrases. Is the
spread of disinformation in the service of ruling elites the purpose of text
retrieval? If so, this purpose imposes a rather different constraint on indexing
rules. Is text retrieval an economic transaction yielding a profit for the
database owner, and therefore a social practice whose participation is
constrained by ability to pay, or is it a fundamental right that ought to be
guaranteed by government? Again, differing conceptions of the social role of
text retrieval will determine the kinds of indexing rules we construct.
Some questions have already been raised in the literature. Is there a large
category of document uses for which the subject of a text, as identified by inter-
and intratextual criteria of significance, is quite irrelevant? Are certain other
features, such as those identified by Swift and Weinberg[43-46], more
significant than a text's 'aboutness'? Does investigation of the uses of
documents show that a text should be considered in light of 'the projects in
which it can be used, the decisions it can facilitate, the arguments it can
support, the predictions it can warrant?'[13, p. 22] If so, we need tofindways
of constructing rules yielding index phrases representing projects, decisions,
arguments, and predictions. Are the practices of document production
relevant for text retrieval? If so, then retrieval practices based on document
clusters mapped by bibliographic coupling and co-citation patterns can

98
June 1990 INDEXING

eliminate the need for rules for the derivation of indexing phrases altogether.
The implication of the Wittgensteinian shift in the conception of rules is that
questions such as these belong at the centre rather than at the margins of
theoretical reflection on information retrieval. There are doubtless many other
important questions; the sample presented here is not intended to be
exhaustive. It offers little more than a gesture in what, by Wittgenstein's
lights, is a direction of fruitful inquiry for information retrieval. The route
indicated travels from the assumption that retrieval systems depend upon
rules governing the derivation of indexing phrases from texts, through the site
of Wittgenstein's reminder that following a rule is a practice, to the
requirement that in order to construct rules we need to know the game we are
playing.

REFERENCES
1. SCHRADER, A.M. In search of a definition of library and information science.
Canadian Journal of Information Science, 9,1984, 59-78.
2. SCHRADER, A.M. The domain of information science: problems in
conceptualization and in consensus-building. Information Services and Use, 6,
1986, 169-205.
3. SCHRADER, A.M. In search of a name: information science and its conceptual
antecedents. Library and Information Science Research, 6,1984, 227-271.
4. FOSKETT, A.C. The subject approach to information. 4th ed. London: Bingley,
1982.
5. FARRADANE, J. The nature of information. Journal of Information Science, I,
1979, 13-17.
6. FARRADANE, J. Knowledge, information, and information science. Journal of
Information Science, 2, 1980, 75-80.
7. FARRADANE, J. Towards a true information science. Information Scientist, 10,
1976,91-101.
8. BEGHTOL, CLARE. Bibliographic classification theory and text linguistics:
aboutness analysis, intertextuality and the cognitive act of classifying documents.
Journal of Documentation, 42(2), 1986, 84-113.
9. ANDERSON, JAMES D. Indexing systems: extensions of the mind's organizing
power. Information and Behavior, 1, 1985, 287-323.
10. BIVINS, KATHLEEN T. Indexing and universals. The information age in
perspective: Proceedings of the ASIS Annual Meeting, 15, 1978, 35-37.
11. ARTANDI, SUSAN. Machine indexing: linguistic and semiotic implications.
Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 27, 1975, 235-239.
12. VICKERY, B.C. Knowledge representation: a brief review. Journal of
Documentation, 42,1986, 145-159.
13. WILSON, PATRICK. Some fundamental concepts of information retrieval. Drexel
Library Quarterly, 14, 1978, 10-24.
14. WITTGENSTEIN, LUDWIG. Philosophical investigations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1953.
15. WITTGENSTEIN, LUDWIG. Remarks on the foundations of mathematics. Rev. ed.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978.
16. NEDOBITY, WOLFGANG. Concepts versus meaning as reflected by the works of
E. Wüster and L. Wittgenstein. International Classification, 16, 1988, 24-26.
17. McLACHLAN, HUGH V. Buchanan, Locke and Wittgenstein on classification.

99
JOURNAL OF DOCUMENTATION Vol. 46, no. 2

Journal of Information Science, 3, 1981, 191-195.

18. FROHMANN, B.P. An investigation of the semantic bases of some theoretical
principles of classification proposed by Austin and the CRG. Cataloguing and
Classification Quarterly, 4, 1983, 11-27.
19. BAKER, G.P., and HACKER, P.M.S. Language, sense and nonsense: a critical
investigation into modern theories of language. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984.
20. BAKER, G.P., and HACKER, P.M.S. Wittgenstein: rules, grammar and necessity.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985.
21. CANFIELD, JOHN V., ed. Logical necessity and rules. New York: Garland, 1986.
(The Philosophy of Wittgenstein, vol. 10)
22. MALCOLM, NORMAN. Nothing is hidden: Wittgenstein's criticism of his early
thought. Oxford, New York: Blackwell, 1986.
23. MALCOLM, NORMAN. Memory and mind. Ithaca, London: Cornell University
Press, 1977.
24. HOLTZMAN, STEPHEN H. and LEICH, CHRISTOPHER M. Wittgenstein: to follow a
rule. London, Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981.
25. KRIPKE, SAUL A. Wittgenstein on rules and private language: an elementary
exposition. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982.
26. WITTGENSTEIN, LUDWIG. Wittgenstein's lectures on the foundations of
mathematics: Cambridge, 1939. Edited by Cora Diamond. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1976.
27. SCHWYZER, HUBERT. Rules and practices. Philosophical Review, 78, 1969, 4 5 1 -
467.
28. RUSSELL, BERTRAND and WHITEHEAD, ALFRED NORTH. Principia
Mathematica. 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910-13.
29. CHOMSKY, NOAM. Rules and representations. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1980.
30. CHOMSKY, NOAM. Language and mind. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
1972.
31. CHOMSKY, NOAM. Knowledge of language: its nature, origin and use. New York:
Praeger, 1986.
32. COOPER, WILLIAM S. Indexing documents by Gedanken experimentation.
Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 29, 1978, 107-119.
33. COOPER, WILLIAM S. Utility-theoretic indexing: a note on Wilson's note. Journal
of the American Society for Information Science, 30, 1979,170-172.
34. WILSON, PATRICK. Utility-theoretic indexing. Journal of the American Society
for Information Science, 30, 1979,169-170.
35. CRAVEN, TIMOTHY C. Sentence dependency structures in abstracts. Library and
Information Science Research, 10, 1988, 401-11.
36. CRAVEN, TIMOTHY C. Text network display editing with special reference to the
production of customized abstracts. Canadian Journal of Information Science, 13,
1988, 59-68.
37. CRAVEN, TIMOTHY C. Customized extracts based on Boolean queries and
sentence dependency structures. International Classification, 16,1989,11-14.
38. RUSH, J.E., SALVADOR, R., and ZAMORA A.. Automated abstracting and
indexing: II. Production of indicative abstracts by application of contextual
inference and syntactic coherence criteria. Journal of the American Society for
Information Science, 22, 1971, 260-274.
39. LIDDY, E., BONZI, S., KATZER, J. and ODDY, E. A study of discourse anaphora in
scientific abstracts. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 38,
1987,255-261.
40. BONZI, S. and LIDDY, E. The use of anaphoric resolution for document
description in information retrieval. Information Processing and Management,

100
June 1990 INDEXING

25, 1989, 429-441.

41. DEA, W. and BELKIN, N.J. Beyond the sentence: clause relations and textual
analysis. Informatics 3: proceedings of a conference held by the Aslib Co-ordinate
Indexing Group, 2-4 April 1975, Emmanuel College, Cambridge, edited by K. P.
Jones and V. Horsnell. London: Aslib, 1978, 67-84.
42. HALLORAN, JAMES D. Information and communication: information is
the answer, but what is the question? Information and Behavior, 1, 1985, 27-39.
43. SWIFT, D. F., WINN, V.A.andBRAMER, D. A. A multi-modal approach to indexing
and classification. International Classification, 4, 1977, 90-94.
44. SWIFT, D.F., WINN, V.A, and BRAMER, D.A. 'Aboutness' as a strategy for retrieval
in the social sciences. Aslib Proceedings, 30, 1978, 182-187.
45. SWIFT, D.F., WINN, V.A. and BRAMER, D.A. Multi-modality in indexing and
searching. Journal of Informatics, 1, 1977, 91-95.
46. WEINBERG, BELLA HASS. Why indexing fails the researcher. The Indexer, 16,
1988, 3-6.

{Received 27 November 1989)

101