Use Keywords

  • Use keywords (the words with the most significance).
    • Experiment with keywords by going broad and alternatively going specific (e.g., loss vs. "passive activity loss").
    • Try to anticipate the words experts and academics would likely use.
  • Put quotations around phrases.
    • A search for simple trusts might return results with the words separated, but "simple trusts" can return results with the words in that exact order.

Limit with Filters

  • You can limit and tidy up your results with filters (often on the left side of results).
    • Adjust the publication date range if the information or subject is affected by developments, innovation, findings, and/or discoveries.
    • Check-mark the source types that will have the information you're looking for, excluding the types that will not.
    • Check-mark and play around with the other filters to show results that are in a specific language, or that have a subject heading (tag) provided by the publishers, etc.

Refocus with Boolean Operators

  • Boolean operators are terms you can use to broaden or narrow your search.
  • The three basic operators are: AND, OR, and NOT.
    • AND links keywords and phrases
    • OR allows for synonym keywords and phrases
    • NOT excludes keywords and phrases

Example: