Description of the Project

Our theory, of course, was that those specific titles which have "come up" most frequently in the past are also those most likely to be asked about again in the future. Knowing what titles have in the past come up more frequently than others allows one to test -- and expand -- one's own knowledge and familiarity with these things more or less systematically. A motivated player could improve his or her play dramatically by going through exercises such as the following: get a printout of any or all of these lists in descending order by "weight" (weight = frequency of mention); test oneself level by level, making sure that at that level each title, and their associated creator (author, artist, composer or what have you) are familiar; and note any titles which are not familiar, or for which one could not name the creator -- these then are exactly those things one most needs to learn something about, whether simply by memorizing the link between author-title or artist-painting or whatever, or by going to the reference works and making sure those titles are looked up and read about. If there is a title that comes up with some frequency, and it means nothing to you, clearly that is a sign that it would behoove you to learn something about it.

These lists represent what the academic quiz community has collectively chosen to write about over many years of question writing. The titles and their ordering are not the idiosyncratic choices of a single writer, but rather a picture of our collective sense of "what's important to know about" within these areas. As such, the end result may be about as good a gauge for what is involved in "cultural literacy" within these areas as exists anywhere. The Literature printout makes one heck of a great reading list.

When ordered by weight, the shape of each of these databases is that of a pyramid, with the greatest number of titles having been mentioned only once, or maybe twice, and smaller numbers of titles at each successively greater weight value. We have made the somewhat arbitrary decision that titles are not clearly "significant" until they have reached the weight level of at least three mentions, and it is only at that point that we verify such things as exact wording of titles, subtitles, date of creation, full name of creator, and so forth. We do not offer lists for sale that include titles below the level of 3 mentions.

As time permits we expect to continue to add information from new tournaments to these databases. Information as to the List of Tournaments Included to Date is available, as is information on Ordering Printouts from the Databases.

There are a few disclaimers or explanations regarding these databases that ought to be stated here for the record:

• We do not guarantee that all information given is entirely accurate, though complete accuracy is certainly our goal. For instance, we have often taken dates of publication, or composition, or creation, from the text of questions themselves, rather than necessarily verifying them independently in reference sources. We welcome corrections forwarded to us by persons who have purchased printouts.

• Within the "Literature" database we made the decision to simply omit a count of "The Bible" as a title, given its complexity (as a collection of numerous other books) and the fact that such questions are so frequent as nearly to comprise a subject area of their own. Reference to other works of sacred literature, however, have been counted.

• Sometimes we have created our own "umbrella" titles. For instance, there are many questions referring to, say, Sherlock Holmes, which do not refer to specific stories but only to recurring characters. To deal with such situations we have created the title "Sherlock Holmes series of stories." Having done that, however, if we encounter a question dealing with a specific work, such as "The Hound of the Baskervilles," we will increase the weight count by one for BOTH "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and for "Sherlock Holmes series of stories."