Index entries contain the word, followed by list of one or more composite `page' numbers that include journal volume number, issue number, and initial and final pages, in the form volume(number)initial-final, e.g., 104(9)852-855, for volume 104, number 9, pages 852 through 855. The publication year is not included, since it is generally strongly correlated with the volume number, and would only serve to inflate the index.
To assist in line breaking in the narrow columns of a multicolumn index, a small linebreaking penalty is inserted before the opening parenthesis, and after the closing parenthesis. Thus, lines may be broken (without hyphenation) at those points in difficult cases, but only rarely.
When any of the volume, number, and pages values are unknown, that uncertainty is reflected in value strings which contain two or more consecutive question marks, such as 104(9)856-?? for a missing final page number.