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Copyright 2004 by the Regents of the University of California. All Rights Reserved. Created by Joe Barker, Teaching Library, UC Berkeley. TOPIC WORKSHEET Jot down a topic or subject you’d like to explore on the Web: BEGIN THE PRE-SEARCHING ANALYSIS 1. What UNIQUE WORDS, DISTINCTIVE NAMES, ABBREVIATIONS, or ACRONYMS are associated with your topic? These may be the place to begin because their specificity will help zero in on relevant pages. 2. Can you think of societies, organizations, or groups that might have information on your subject via their pages? Search these as a “phrase in quotes”, looking for a home page that might contain links to other pages, journals, discussion groups, or databases on your subject. You may require the “phrase in quotes” to be in the documents’ titles by preceding it by title:[no space] 3. What other words are likely to be in ANY Web documents on your topic? You may want to require these by joining them with AND or preceding each by +[no space] 4. Do any of the words in 1, 2, or 3 belong in phrases or strings --together in a certain order, like a cliché? Search these as a “phrase in quotes”. (E.g., “affirmative action” or “communicable diseases”) 5. For any of the terms in #4, can you think of synonyms, variant spellings, or equivalent terms you would also accept in relevant documents? You may want to allow these terms by joining them by OR and including each set of equivalent terms in ( ). 6. Can you think of any extraneous or irrelevant documents these words might pick up? You may want to exclude terms or phrases with -[no space] before each term, or AND NOT 7. What BROADER terms could your topic be covered by? When browsing subject categories or searching sites of webliographies or databases on your topic, try broader categories.