you flop a top pair on a small board and your opponent, who raised preflop, checks. it's fairly safe to assume your opponent has an over or 2 overs. at this point, you have to think about the odds that he'll hit on the next two streets. from there, you can determine what a profitable bet would be. most of the time you probably just make the bet and he folds to you, but if you have a sense of his personality (maybe he's a calling station, or he's tight and you've been raising him out of a lot of pots and feel like he's about to crack and call), you can make the raise bigger.

some people automatically fold if their non-paired hand does not improve on the flop (some multi-tablers are like this, so if you see someone playing slow a lot at random spots, take notice and see if they're easily pushed off flops). if you're in front of them, a bet from you will only be called about a third of the time, since most flops miss. so get into hands with them, and make small flop bets. most of the time you will profit, and if they call, you at least get a solid read on their hand.

the way you play will affect calling ranges. if your table image is tight, you'll get a lot more folds, and vice versa. if you just showed a junk hand at a showdown, you may get more callers on your next pair, and if you just showed aces, you may get folded to when you bet your rags on the next hand.