Back matter is everything printed after the final chapter: acknowledgements, appendices, a glossary, endnotes, a bibliography and the index. It continues the main text's arabic page numbering rather than starting a new sequence, and the index always comes last. British editors call the same section the end matter.
The test for what belongs there is function. As the Chicago Manual of Style's editors put it, anything that helps a reader navigate the book goes at the front, while anything that provides "commentary or supporting information" goes at the back. That single rule explains why the contents page is front matter and the index is not.
The Elements, In Order
- Acknowledgements. Personal thanks. See the note below on why these moved.
- Appendix. Supporting material too bulky for the main text. Multiple appendices sit under a collective heading and may be numbered or lettered.
- Chronology or genealogy. Common in history and in multi-generational fiction.
- Glossary. Definitions of terms used in the text. New Hart's Rules is firm that it "is not a substitute for explaining terms at their first occurrence in the text", and that the two must agree.
- Endnotes. Notes collected at the back rather than at the foot of each page.
- Bibliography or references. See the distinction below.
- List of contributors. For edited collections.
- Illustration credits. Where not carried in the captions.
- Index. Always last among the reference apparatus. See what is an index in a book for why software cannot build one and why fiction does not need one.
Trade paperbacks often add a few items after the index: a reading group guide, a biographical note, a colophon, or an errata slip.
Bibliography, references and further reading are not synonyms. New Hart's Rules draws the line precisely. A list called References or Works cited contains only works cited in the book. A Bibliography contains those plus additional works of likely interest. Further reading usually contains works that were not cited. Choosing the wrong heading misrepresents what the list is.
Acknowledgements Moved
This is the single most out-of-date thing on the web about back matter. The Chicago Manual of Style changed its recommendation in the 18th edition, and its own list of what changed records it: "Acknowledgments now preferred in back matter rather than front matter for most books."
Earlier editions treated the front as the default. Most articles online still reflect that. Trade fiction had already settled on the back, where acknowledgements sit immediately after the final chapter and read as a kind of epilogue.
There is a second complication worth knowing. Two different things share the name. New Hart's Rules separates the author's personal thanks, headed simply Acknowledgements, from Copyright acknowledgements, which list the rights holders of quoted material such as epigraphs. It recommends keeping them apart, and notes the copyright list "can appear either in the prelims or in the end matter".
Page Numbering
Back matter is numbered in arabic numerals, continuing straight on from the last page of the text. There is no reset and no second sequence. Only the front matter uses roman numerals, and it does so precisely so that late changes there cannot repaginate the text and back matter.
One practical consequence for print: do not pad the end of your book with blank pages to reach a round page count. IngramSpark asks explicitly that a publisher "end the text of their book without padding blank pages", because the printer adds pages itself and reserves the final page for manufacturing information.
Setting Back Matter Up in Deckle
Deckle offers six back matter page types, added from the + button at the top of the Binder under Back Matter: About the Author, Acknowledgments, Also by the Author, Coming Next, Book Club Questions and Glossary.
Note what that list does and does not contain. Acknowledgments is filed as back matter, matching Chicago's current recommendation. There is no dedicated type for an appendix, endnotes, bibliography or index, so those are built as ordinary documents placed after your final chapter. Endnotes are the exception: if you use Deckle's footnote feature and set the note style to endnotes, the endnotes page is generated for you at export rather than being a document you create.
Because the Binder order is the book order, back matter is simply whatever sits below your last chapter.
Common Mistakes
- Putting acknowledgements in the front matter by default. Chicago now prefers the back for most books.
- Labelling a list "Bibliography" when it only contains cited works. That is a References or Works cited list.
- Repeating the glossary's definitions instead of the text's, or contradicting them. The two must agree.
- Starting a new page-number sequence at the back. Back matter continues the text's arabic numbering.
- Padding blank pages to round out the page count. Print-on-demand services handle this and ask you not to.
- Putting the index anywhere but last. Among the reference apparatus, it always ends the book.
FAQ
Q: Does a novel need any back matter at all? A: No. Many novels end at the last chapter. Acknowledgements and an author biography are the two most common additions.
Q: Should acknowledgements go at the front or the back? A: The back, for most books, following Chicago's 18th edition. The front remains reasonable when crediting substantial collaborators such as translators.
Q: Where does an epilogue go? A: With the text, before the back matter begins. So does an afterword: Chicago covers both under a single heading placed among the sections about the text, not among the reference apparatus. See epilogue vs afterword.
Q: Is an index required? A: No source read makes it mandatory. It is expected in scholarly non-fiction and almost never used in fiction.
Q: Do ebooks need back matter in the same order? A: Not necessarily. New Hart's Rules notes digital editions may reorder elements, and an index of page numbers is meaningless in a reflowable file.