Abstract Analysis of trophic interactions in soil food webs requires methods for obtaining reliable trophic information and organizing that information into functional units. Methods of obtaining trophic information about soil organisms fall into three general categories: (I) direct observation; (II) gut content analysis; (III) experiment/inference. Trophic information is interpreted using two conceptual models: (1) food webs (i.e. maps of feeding relationships among trophic species); (2) trophic levels (i.e. sequentially diminishing energy levels). Trophic classifications often confound these two conceptual models by defining an organism's feeding behavior in terms of trophic levels (e.g. herbivore, carnivore, detritivore) or pseudotrophic levels (e.g. fungivore, nematophage, insectivore). Simplistic trophic classifications miss many of the links in real food webs, result in theory based on false assumptions and limit the application of ecological principles to applied research.