Understanding Your Documents

To build effective topics, you must have a good understanding of the types of documents being used as information sources. For example, your documents may consist of one or more of the following types of information:

Collect representative samples of the types of documents to be searched. Note common characteristics you will need to apply to the topics you design. For example, if your documents contain important terms, acronyms, or jargon, highlight them so you can create topics that search for this text.

As you collect your document samples, identify their sources-whether they are internal sources, such as internal auditing reports; or external sources, such as electronic mail messages from outside organizations. This information will enable you to define the subtopics for top-level topics.