Performing a Terms & Connectors Search

Terms & Connectors search allows you to search for documents by specifying words and phrases that describe your research question.  You can also use specialized search connectors to filter and customize the search to get return more specific results.

To perform a Terms & Connectors search: 

1. Click Search on the Top Toolbar if you are not already at the search screen. The Search screen appears.

2. Select the Terms & Connectors search option below the Keywords field.
3. From the Practice Area menu on the left sidebar, select the Practice Area within which you wish to search (for example, Federal, State & Local, International).
4. The source sets for the selected practice area appear in the Source Sets list.
5. Click the icon to expand a source set.
6. You can select for your search as many sources from a source set as you wish. Simply select the corresponding check box for each source.
7. To select an entire source set, click the check box to the left of the source set name (for example, Editorial Materials, Primary Source Materials, and so forth in the federal practice area).
8. You can also select a custom source set to search from the Choose Sources From drop down menu.
9. Enter your search keywords or search phrase in the Keywords: field, or select Thesaurus/Query Tool for these advanced search functions:

• A select from previous keywords list is available on the Thesaurus/Query Tool screen allowing you to choose one of the last 10 keywords you have used. 
• 
  
• A special search syntax called search connectors is available to help you refine your search. Choose a search connector from the Append Connectors list.

• Click Get Thesaurus Terms for Current Query to generate a list of your search terms' synonyms that appear in the sources you are searching. Click the terms alternatives you would like to include in the search. To automatically include all synonyms, click the Include all alternatives in query link.

8. Click Search to execute your search.
   
   Once the search is complete, your results appear in the format determined by your Options screen selection.

Note: When you type more than one keyword in the Keywords field, by default Checkpoint interprets this as implying the "AND" search operator. In other words, it will retrieve all document(s) that include at least one occurrence of each of the terms you typed. For more information, see Using Search Connectors.

Click Clear All to remove keywords from the dialog box, to clear selected sources, and to return to the default Search settings.

 Search using Section Symbols and Alternatives

You can search for a specific section using both the section symbol: § and equivalent alternatives. For example, these search terms will all produce the same result:

• §1.1502-13

• s1.1502-13

• sec1.1502-13

• section1.1502-13

Note: To enter a § symbol, you must hold the Alt key while typing 0167 on the numeric keypad of your keyboard.

If you are searching for a section it is also useful to use the section number by itself using the "OR" search connector ("|") to also include the section number and symbol.

For example use:

1.1502-14 | s1.1502.14

instead of just:

1.1502.14

    or

s1502.14

Note: When searching for multiple sections, §§, ss, and "sections" are also interchangeable and produce equivalent results.

Related Topics:

• Introduction to Searching
• Keyword Searching
• Using the Checkpoint Thesaurus
• Setting Search Options
• Using Search Connectors
• Displaying and Navigating Your Search Results
• Performing a Search within BNA Daily Tax Report™

© 2011 Thomson Reuters/RIA. All rights reserved.