Advanced Training. CCH Internet Research NetWork Searching. Participant Training Guide

Transcription

1 Advanced Training CCH Internet Research NetWork Searching Participant Training Guide October 30, 2005 CCH INCORPORATED Wolters Kluwer Legal

2 Table of Contents Introduction and Objectives Review: 4 Steps for Word Search Search Method Boolean Preferences Additional Search Tools Thesaurus Date Parameters Document Segments Document Type(s) Finding most recent developments Report Letters, Tracker News & Daily Document Updates Current/New Developments, Smart Relate & Indexes Searching a Search List Blank search Support & Wrap-up Appendix Noise Words Stop Words Document Types Quick Tips for CCH IRN Advanced Searching CCH INCORPORATED, Wolters Kluwer Legal October

3 Introduction This 30 minute training session, conducted by a CCH Legal Training Consultant, will enable you conduct more sophisticated key word searches within CCH Internet Research NetWork (CCH IRN) and be better able to keep current with new developments. Objectives Upon completion of this session, participants will be able to: 1. Explain Boolean Connectors and their processing order 2. Set their default Preferences for searching 3. Focus a search by date, document segment, and/or document type(s) 4. Conduct a search to find the most recent documents 5. Conduct a blank word search to retrieve a list of documents. CCH INCORPORATED, Wolters Kluwer Legal October

4 Review: 4 Steps for Word Search 1. Focus a search by targeting topics/publications/databases Use Browse to select/target desired data topic(s) and/or subtopic(s). Always go forward by clicking a CCH IRN Library Tab or the Main Menu command when targeting data. Avoid using your browser s Back button which retraces your steps and negates prior action. 2. Type search expression Use unique language Employ Wildcards: - * to substitute for a single character; -! to truncate a term Avoid Noise words, e.g., as, of, the, then, where, with. See the Appendix for more information about Noise Words and Stop Words 3. Use Search Tools to verify/change current search settings Is the Search Method appropriate for your search expression? Enable CCH s legal Thesaurus to broaden a search by automatically substituting synonyms for your search terms. You can apply the Thesaurus to just a single term by using $ after the term in your search expression. For example, a Boolean Connector search for stock$ and fraud will return documents containing stock, share, or security (synonyms from the thesaurus for stock) and fraud (with no additional synonyms from the thesaurus for that term). Narrow your search using date, segment or document type(s). 4. Execute Search View results display by Document or Table of Contents Modify criteria and conduct subsequent search(es) within results Record your findings Continue to monitor recent developments CCH INCORPORATED, Wolters Kluwer Legal October

5 Use Boolean Connector Search Method CCH IRN engine will recognize logical operators within a search expression (and, or, not, w/#) only if Boolean Connectors is used a the search method. Logical operators specify the relationship between terms which must exist in order for document(s) to be retrieved. Boolean Connectors, in processing order: Space Terms with a space in between will be interpreted as a single phrase. For example, hedge fund. You can use a quotes to include an operator within a phrase, however the operator will be considered a noise word and disregarded. For example, foreign and credit will find all phrases with foreign followed by any single term followed by credit. OR Placing the word OR between terms will retrieve documents that contain either or both of the terms. This is useful for entering synonyms or alternative terms like child or dependent. For example, gasoline or oil will retrieve documents that contain either term or both terms. W/n Placing w/n between terms will retrieve documents in which the first term appears within the specified number of words as the second term (where n equals the number of words between terms). For example, gasoline w/25 oil will retrieve documents that contain the words gasoline and oil when they appear within 25 words of each other. The value of n cannot exceed 127 words. W/sen Placing w/sen between terms will retrieve documents that contain the first terms within 20 words of the second terms. For example, gasoline station w/sen oil refinery will retrieve gasoline station within 20 words of oil refinery. W/par Placing w/par between terms will retrieve documents that contain the first terms within 80 words of the second terms. For example, gasoline station w/par oil refinery will retrieve gasoline station within 80 words of oil refinery. P/n Placing p/n between terms will retrieve documents in which the first term precedes the second term by no more than n words. For example, foreign p/2 credit will retrieve documents containing foreign anyword1 anyword2 credit. The value of n cannot exceed 127 words. F/n Placing f/n between terms will retrieve documents in which the first term follows the second term by no more than n words. For example, credit f/2 foreign will retrieve documents containing foreign anyword1 anyword2 credit. The value of n cannot exceed 127 words. AND Placing the word AND between terms will retrieve documents that contain both of the terms. For example, gasoline and oil will retrieve documents that contain gasoline and oil anywhere in the document. NOT Placing the word NOT between terms will retrieve documents that contain the first terms only if the second term does not appear. This connector is useful when your keyword often appears in a context that is irrelevant to your research. For example, if you want to find documents concerning RICO litigation, the search expression RICO not Puerto will exclude documents in which RICO occurs as a part of Puerto Rico. ( ) Placing parentheses within a search expression will override the connector s processing order and allow you to specify the desired order of operation. For example, (fraud and abuse) w/4 medicare will first find both of the terms fraud and abuse, each within 4 words of the term medicare CCH INCORPORATED, Wolters Kluwer Legal October

6 Preferences You can change the underlying Preferences (default settings) for your CCH desktop. Set Search Options Customize your default settings for Search Method, Maximum Number of Results, Sort, Highlights, Thesaurus, Citation search included in word search and then click Apply Changes to save your new defaults. Additional Search Tools Other changes can be made temporarily Tools command. using the Search Narrow by Search Date You can restrict a search to a specific time frame when documents, e.g., cases, ruling and releases, contain a searchable date. Date criteria can be entered via Search Tools: o Click Search by Date o Select Range o Enter date(s) o Click OK Using a search expression in conjunction with Boolean Connectors search method, e.g., After 2001 will retrieve documents containing a date from 2002 forward. Date Parameter Example On. on 10/23/1997 Between. between 12/31/1993 and 1/1/1995 Before. before 1/1/1985 After. after 2001 CCH INCORPORATED, Wolters Kluwer Legal October

7 Searching within Document Segments Use Segments to focus your search expression within a designated area of a document. Different publications contain different searchable document segments. You can enter Document Segment criteria: - From within Search Tools: - As part of your search expression if using Boolean Connectors Search Method Segment Heading Case-name IRC-Reference UILINFO Date Topic Example Amortization in headings Capone in case-name 280A in ircref ! In uilinfo 2004 in date Real-estate in topic Chart of Common CCH Document Segments Document Segment Topic Heading Case-Name Date IRC-Reference Text Uilinfo Description Menu path topics listed in small blue font at top of document display, correspond to location of document with CCH IRN contents as listed on menu screens. Identifies the CCH title and subtitles (bolded text) throughout a document. It can be used to exclude irrelevant materials from Search results. Identifies the parties involved in a court case. Official case names are sometimes shortened by listing only one plaintiff and defendant, as in Eisner v. Macomber. For best results, use SEARCH syntax broad enough to retrieve variations in case names Eisner w/sen Macomber in case-name for example. Will find occurrence of search expression, e.g., 2004, when used as a date reference will find 2004 anywhere within the document. Will not find $2004 or 2,004. Tax cases include a segment indicating the IRC section that this case involves. Contains the main content of most document types. The Text segment includes everything within a document that is not assigned to another segment. In court decisions, the analogous material is the Opinion segment. The term "uilinfo" stands for the Uniform Issues List Information segment, which is a coding scheme developed by the Internal Revenue Service to identify the code section, subsection or sub-subsection that is being addressed by any given letter ruling or IRS position paper. It follows a particular structure: nnnn.nn-nn The first four digits to the left of the decimal extension correspond to code section being addressed. For example, if IRC Section 992 is addressed, then it appears If IRC Section 401(k) is addressed, then it will appear as And, if IRC Section 162(c)(3) is addressed, then it will appear as CCH INCORPORATED, Wolters Kluwer Legal October

8 Selecting Document Type(s) CCH Editors assign a document descriptor to every document within a publication. This description allows you to identify the type of document and focus a search to retrieve selected document type(s). Some document types, e.g., CCH Explanations (CCH-EXP) and CCH Annotations (CCH-ANNO), are universal through-out all CCH publications. Other document types are used within specific publications, such as SEC-LAW for Federal Securities Law within CCH Federal Securities Library and FAR for Federal Acquisition Regulation within CCH Government Contracts Library. Tip: To view an expanded list of document types, e.g., U.S. Appeals Courts,: 1. Check the box 2. Then click on the link The Appendix has a list of additional document types. CCH INCORPORATED, Wolters Kluwer Legal October

9 Finding Most Recent Materials CCH provides several ways to keep current with ongoing developments. Depending upon the scope within your subscription, you may have one or more avenues for monitoring recent updates. Report Letters Many CCH publications have an associated Report Letter which summarizes new developments on a periodic basis. Additionally, complimentary newsletters with excerpts from several CCH Report Letters are available on the web as well as via delivery. (See page 11 for additional CCH product information). Tracker News & Daily Documents Updates CCH provides daily updates within Tracker or Daily Document Update databases. These can be searched as needed or a specific search can be created & used to produce daily customized alerts which can be viewed on MY CCH tab, received via or accessed using CCH@Hand. Most material posted to a Tracker or DDU database will be posted to the corresponding CCH publication within a month of its receipt. Tracker (Daily Update) databases contain approximately 90 days of material, except for Federal Tax Day & State Tax Day which contain ~ 1.5 years worth of material. Securities Compliance Trackers also contain Archive databases for material 91 days and older. Tracker News is covered in more detail in the Advanced CCH IRN - Research Tools course. CCH INCORPORATED, Wolters Kluwer Legal October

10 Current &/or New Developments Because CCH publishes their internet content using the same format found within their print publications, court decisions and rulings are saved in a Current or New developments topic, (similar to the Cumulative Index binder in the print materials whose contents will become a transfer binder when the physical capacity of the binder is reached.) CCH organizes Current Developments into separate menu topics for easy access. These documents can also be searched using Date criteria. Some CCH publications include CCH Smart Relate links within documents to alert you to existence of related material, including Current Developments. Clicking on a Smart Relate button opens a new document with listing and links to related material. Some CCH Publications also contain Indexes or Finding Devices with break-out of most recent additions. CCH INCORPORATED, Wolters Kluwer Legal October

11 Searching a Search List CCH initial search defaults are set to return a maximum number of 200 documents, displayed in relevance order. Hence your search results listing may contain only a portion of the actual findings, indicated by the statement The top 200 of ### total documents matching your query have been returned. A secondary search at this point will search only those 200 most relevant documents. In order to search against the entire set of documents that matched your query, you should first return to the menu screen where you targeted database(s) by using either the Main Menu command, in primary dark blue tool bar, or from within Search Tools, click Apply Changes. Then execute your search. You can change the default Search Settings within your Preferences to return 9,999 documents, the most documents that CCH IRN will handle. Blank Search A search containing no search expression will return all of the selected documents, after you click OK when warned that you haven t entered a search expression. Useful when you want to retrieve selected documents while viewing a menu screen. CCH INCORPORATED, Wolters Kluwer Legal October

12 Support & Wrap-up Online Help For context-sensitive help information, click Help and follow the screen prompts. Contact CCH Customer and Technical Support: Website - (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) Live Chat (Mon-Fri, 9AM-5PM Central) Phone Support: (Monday - Friday, 8AM - 6PM Central) o Research Support (toll-free phone number): o Technical Support (toll-free phone number): Training Register for complimentary CCH Legal Professional telephone training via our website To schedule a custom training session, please contact your CCH Legal Training Consultant or send an to cchlegaltraining@cch.com Additional Product Information - For more information about CCH products and publications, go to the following web sites: CCH Business & Finance CCH Health & Medical o NetNews - CCH Human Resources & Labor o NetNews - CCH Tax & Accounting o NewsCenter - CCH INCORPORATED, Wolters Kluwer Legal October

13 Appendix Noise Words Certain common words are considered noise words and are automatically ignored. Noise words include prepositions, articles, pronouns, and commonly used adjectives and verbs. It is best to avoid "noise words" because they can slow down your search and produce unexpected results. If you use noise words in a search expression using All Terms as your Search Method, the system will simply ignore them. For example, loss of income will find all documents containing loss and income. If you use noise words in a search phrase, the system will target phrases with the same number of words, but other words might appear in place of the noise word. For example, loss of income will find loss and income, loss recapture income, losses against income, etc. The phrase that you are searching is expected to contain the same number of words, but the "noise words" are interchangeable with any other single word. Alphabetical list of noise words a, about, above, all, along, also, although, am, an, any, are, aren't, as, at be, because, been, but, by can, cannot, could, couldn't did, didn't, do, does, doesn't e.g., either, etc, etc., even, ever for, from, further get, gets, got had, hardly, has, hasn't, having, he, hence, her, here, hereby, herein, hereof, hereon, hereto, herewith, him, his, how, however I, i.e., if, into, it, it's, its me, more, most, mr, my near, nor, now of, onto, other, our, out, over really said, same, she, should, shouldn't, since, so, some, such than, that, the, their, them, then, there, thereby, therefore, therefrom, therein, thereof, thereon, thereto, therewith, these, they, this, those, through, thus, to, too under, until, unto, upon, us very, viz. was, wasn't, we, were, what, when, where, whereby, wherein, whether, which, while, who, whom, whose, why, with, without, would you, your Search Tip: Use a Boolean search with the proximity connector, p/n, to avoid "noise words". For example, loss p/3 income will find loss preceding income by no more than 3 terms.. CCH INCORPORATED, Wolters Kluwer Legal October

14 Advanced CCH IRN - Searching Stop Words Some words are considered stop words these are reserved as logical operators when doing a Boolean search: after, and (also the &), before, between, in, is, not, on, or, within. For example, if you do a Boolean search for exemption after 2003, the results will be documents dated after 2003 which contain the word exemption. In this case the word after functions as a logical operator. It is just like using Search Tools and setting Date parameters but instead entering the operator within the phrase. If, however, you enclose the Boolean search in quotes, e.g., exemption after 2003 now it is going to ignore the word after but keep the rest of the words in order as if it were a phrase and leave an opening between exemption and 2003 for any of 2 words. So this search phrase will find documents which contain the word exemption preceding 2003 by up to 2 words. CCH INCORPORATED, Wolters Kluwer Legal October,

15 Advanced CCH IRN - Searching CCH-EXP CCH-ANNO XXX-LAW XXX-REG NEWSLETTER or REPORT-LETTER TOP-INDX US-SUP-CT US-CT-APP-# AGCY-ISS FORM TREATISE NEW-DEV IRC IRC-HIST XX-RUL TD EO NO-ACT FED-REG-NOTICE Descriptions of Selected Document Types CCH Editorial Explanations provide concise introduction and overview of a topic, often with links to additional explanations and/or significant primary source material. CCH Editorial Annotations provide brief digest of related Laws, Regulations, Cases, Rulings, etc., including references to archival material. Note: if your subscription does not include archival material, these links will not work. Actual text of the law, often with historical comment at bottom: SEC-LAW - - Securities Law MED-LAW - - Medicare and Medicaid Law FED-LAW - - Federal Law STATE-LAW - - State Law Actual text of the regulations, often with historical comment at bottom: SEC-REG - - Securities Regulation MED-REG - - Medicare and Medicaid Regulation FED-REG - - Federal Regulation STATE-REG - - State Regulation PROP-REG - - Proposed Regulation Periodic updates with summaries of significant developments, often with links to full-text within the corresponding CCH publication/database. Topical Index is where CCH Editors list specific subjects with location in CCH publication where addressed. (Same as in print publication) U.S. Supreme Court U.S. Court of Appeals with abbreviation for circuit Agency Issuance Text view of a form. Document from a Treatise, e.g., Goldstein on Copyright, published by Aspen Publishers. Material that was once a current development. Once labeled, always labeled. Current Internal Revenue Code (Federal Tax) Prior Internal Revenue Code (Federal Tax) Rulings: LTR-RUL - - IRS Letter Ruling (Federal Tax) REV-RUL - - Revenue Ruling (Federal Tax) FTC-RUL - - FTC Rule (Trade Regulations) Treasury Decision (Federal Tax) Executive Order (Federal Tax, Government Contracts, etc.) SEC No-Action Letter Federal Register Release Tip: Target a publication or sub-section and use Search Tools to view the available document types within that scope. CCH INCORPORATED, Wolters Kluwer Legal October,

16 Advanced CCH IRN - Searching Quick Tips: CCH IRN - Searching Target Publications, Topics, Sub-topics Browse the menu topics of a publication/database to target specific sections or sub-topics. Use Menu Path links to navigate to other topics you wish to target. Use Main Menu to return to the Library tab retaining your target selections. Use the Thesaurus Check the Thesaurus in Search Tools to include synonyms for all terms Uncheck the Thesaurus and use $ after a word to find synonyms for that word only. Set Search Method = Boolean Connectors Construct your search expression using logical connectors and proximity connectors for more precision. Set Preferences Set the Preferences for your User ID to what you want as the defaults: Boolean Search Method, Number returned in results, Thesaurus on/off. Retrieve documents by Date Use Search Tools > Narrow Search by Date to search for documents that contain searchable dates. Retrieve Documents by Segment Use Search Tools > Narrow Search by Part of a Document to focus your search within a segment of the documents. Retrieve Types of Documents Use Search Tools > Narrow Search by Document Type to retrieve only selected type(s) of document(s). Find Most Recent Materials Target Tracker Daily, Daily Document Updates, and Report Letters Open Search Tools to select desired Document Type(s), Current Development &/or specific courts, and include date-restriction. Click on SmartRelate links for Current Developments Use Indexes/Finding Devices to locate latest additions (selected publications) Use Blank Search to Retrieve a List of Documents Browse to a menu topic or sub-topic Target documents Optional: use Search Tools to narrow search by Document Type Execute Search (click OK when prompted about no search expression) Microsoft Internet Explorer Tip: Periodically delete the temporary files to allow Back button to work properly. Tools > Internet Options > Delete Temporary Files CCH INCORPORATED, Wolters Kluwer Legal October,