Pre-searching allows you to explore your broad topic and find out how much has been written about it. This way you can discover what areas you may want to focus on, learn about other aspects of your topic, etc.

a. Look up your topic in a general or subject-specific database -- are there enough articles on the topic? Which articles sound interesting? Do you want to consider a different aspect of your topic?

b. Look up your topic in the library catalog -- are there any book-length overviews? Are there books listed with narrower aspects of the broad topic?

c. Look up your broad topic in a search engine to see what's on the Web -- is there anything interesting that you hadn't considered? What types of Web sites are there -- any scholarly or research oriented sites?