How do I narrow or filter my results after a search?

If your search has resulted in a large answer set, you can narrow your results to the documents most relevant to your search by using any of the filters in the Narrow By pane on the left side of your results.

  • Use the Search Within Results filter to find documents within your results that contain specific search terms. For example, if you entered the search terms: dog bite liability and your answer set is very large, you might enter the terms: assumed risk to narrow the results to only documents that also contain those terms.
  • Use the other filters, such as Category, Jurisdiction, Timeline, Sources, etc. to narrow your results to cases in your jurisdiction, a specific time frame, etc. The filters that are available for narrowing your results depend on what kind of search you ran and what types of content your results contain. For example, if you ran a legal search, the filters in the Narrow By pane include Cases, Statutes, Court, Jurisdiction, etc. If you ran a Shepard's® search, the filters include Jurisdiction, Analysis, etc.

See the table below for more information about using filters.

Note:
  • If you are viewing your results in the Cases category, Category is not displayed in the Narrow By pane because your results are already narrowed to the Cases category and can't be narrowed any further. However, some categories, such as Analytical Materials can be further narrowed down, so the subcategories are displayed under Category when you are viewing your results in the Analytical Materials category.
  • Documents may appear in more than one category. For example, case law documents would appear in the "Cases" category, in one of the jurisdictions, one of the sources, and would also contain a number of keywords and/or citations.

After running a search and reviewing your results:

If you want to...Do this
Narrow your results to documents containing specific search terms or a citationEnter your search terms or a citation in the box under Search Within Results and select OK.
Narrow your results by the other filters in the Narrow By paneClick the item under a filter heading (such as Category, Legal Topic, Jurisdiction, etc.) that you want to restrict your results to, and select OK. For example, to restrict your results to case law only, select Cases under Category.
Narrow by more than one category under a filterClick Select multiple, select the checkboxes for the categories you want to narrow your results to, and select OK.
Restrict your results to a particular date rangeUnder the Timeline filter of the Narrow By pane, use your mouse to move either of the sliders to the left or right until the date range you want is displayed, or enter the dates in the the year fields, and select OK.
Return to a previous results setClick the X next to your selections at the top of the Narrow By pane to close that version of your results.
Return to your original results after narrowing them one or more timesClick the Clear link at the top of the Narrow By pane.
Find your original or Search Within Results search terms in a documentOpen a document from your results, and select the terms you want to find from the Navigate tool at the top right side of the document.
Note: Each time you narrow your results, the results are cumulative. For example, you can narrow your results to Cases, then to a specific time line within those cases, and then to a specific jurisdiction or court within those cases in the timeline.

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