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Search tips

Search tips for Checkpoint Classic

Find tips to help make your searches more effective.

Language is legal or specialized

As you choose search keywords, consider who wrote the material that you seek. Most libraries that have official source material use legal language that makes keyword searches a challenge.

Keywords are too specific

Is your topic part of a broader issue. Don't focus on specifics. Consider what else might relate to your issue.

Keywords are too generic

Avoid commonly used words such as tax or deduction. They occur so frequently that they won't get you any closer to the results you seek.
Avoid prepositions (such as
to
 and
on
) and articles (such as
a
 and
the
) unless they are part of a phrase in quotation marks because they occur so frequently that
Checkpoint Classic
 can't accept them as keywords. For example, the search
"ordinary and necessary expenses"
 will retrieve documents that contain ordinary and necessary expenses, ordinary or necessary expenses, and so forth.

Hyphens and hyphenated compound words

Hyphens are searchable. If you type e-mail, documents that contain at least one occurrence of e-mail with hyphens, all occurrences of e-mail, and all occurrences of e mail will be retrieved.
If you use hyphens when you search for compound word search terms, Checkpoint Classic will give you the broadest search results possible.

Acronyms

Tax and financial documents are filled with acronyms for institutions, government agencies, and tax concepts. For searches that include commonly used acronyms such as GAAP,
Checkpoint Classic
 will retrieve results for both the expanded name and its acronym.

Codes or regulations with parentheses

Enter the code section or regulation citation within quotation marks in the Keywords field, for example,
"381(c)(4)"
. You can also use
Citation Search
 to find the Code section, Statute, or Regulations Number.