Corporate Solutions from Thomson Reuters

Searching the RegKnowledge™ System

Table of Contents

	Search Strategies
	Search Rules
	Basic Citation Search from the Boolean Search Screen
	Citation Search Instructions for State and Federal Regulations
	Using the In Citation Box
	Using the Boolean Search Boxes: Simple Search
	Using the Boolean Search Boxes: Advanced Search
	Boolean and Proximity Operators
	Example Search Tables
	Wildcard Searching
	Regulations Database Checkboxes
	To Search Specific Federal Titles or State Regulations
	To Search All Federal Titles or All State Regulations
	Document Comparison Feature

There are several ways in which the various regulations databases may be searched. The following document explores these methods from least- to most-complex. Additional information can be found in the example search tables.

Search Strategies

There are three ways to search for regulations and lists of regulated chemicals:

Integrated Index Search--For regulatory data, enter a citation (i.e., 29 CFR 1910.1000) in the search blank, then press Enter to initiate the search. For lists of regulated chemicals, enter a chemical name (or CAS number, NA number, RCRA number, RTECS number, STCC number, or UN number) in the search box, then press Enter to initiate the search. (NOTE: Only Integrated Index searching can be used to search for lists of regulated chemicals. Table of Contents searching and Boolean (Free-Text) searching do not apply.)
Table of Contents Search--Click the hypertext for the regulations database you would like to search (Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Register, state regulations, OSHA publications, or EPA publications). Continue to click the resulting hypertext, narrowing your search until you reach the page you want.
Boolean (Free-Text) Search--Follow the instruction in Using the In Citation: Box and Using the Boolean Search Boxes.

Search Rules:

Multiple consecutive words in the Boolean Search Boxes are treated as a phrase; they must appear in the same order within a matching document.
Search terms are not case sensitive -- you can type search terms in uppercase or lowercase.
You can search for any word except "noise" words (this includes common words such as a, an, and, as, and so on), which are ignored during a search. A complete list of noise words is available for review.
"Noise" words are treated as placeholders in phrase and proximity searches. For example, if you searched for “right to know”, the results could give you “right to know” and “right and know”, because to is a noise word.
Punctuation marks such as the period (.), colon (:), semicolon (;), and comma (,) are ignored during a search.

To search for a word or phrase containing quotation marks, enclose the entire phrase in quotation marks and then double the quotation marks around the word or words you want to surround with quotes. For example, “Hazardous materials OR ““Haz-mat””” searches for Hazardous materials or “Haz-mat”.
You can use Boolean Operators (AND, OR, and AND NOT) and the Proximity Operator (NEAR) to specify additional search information within a single search box.
The Wildcard Character (*) can match words with a given prefix. The search term esc* matches the terms “ESC,” “escape,” and so on.

Basic Citation Search from the Boolean Search Screen

Enter a citation (i.e., 20 DCAC 1012) into the In Citation: box. See Using the In Citation: Box for more information on using the "Citation" Box.
Click the Search button.

Using the In Citation Box:

Enter a state or federal citation (i.e., 4 TAC 8.9, or 40 CFR 124.3) in the In Citation: Box.
NOTE: Multiple terms in the In Citation: Box are by default joined by the AND logical operator. For example, entering 4 TAC 8.9 is telling the search engine to search for documents containing all three terms, "4" and "TAC" and "8.9," in any order. When using the In Citation: Box, it does not matter what is checked in the Search In column.
Click the Search button.

The results of the search are displayed and can be browsed using the scroll bar on the right of the screen.

Using the Boolean Search Boxes: Simple Search

The Boolean Search Boxes, found below the In Citation: Box, allow you to enter several terms separated by the logical operators AND, OR, NEAR, and AND NOT found in the drop-down list on the right of each box. Open the drop-down list by clicking the down-arrow next to it.

Enter a search term in the first box.
Select an operator next to that box, or leave at default (AND).
Enter an additional search term in the second box.
Repeat until all desired search terms and operators have been entered.
Click Select Databases.
Determine the regulations database(s) to be searched. By default, all three databases are selected. Remove the check mark from the database(s) you do not want searched by clicking the box to the left of the database.
To search specific federal titles or specific states, see the Regulations Databases Check Boxes .
Click the Search button.

Please note the logical operator words (AND, OR, etc.) can be entered inside a single Boolean Search Box. For example, you could enter “hazard OR emergency” in a single Boolean box and not have to use the operator lists on the right side of the box. See the example search tables for more information on how to combine search terms and logical operators to find specific regulations or instances of search terms.

Using the Boolean Search Boxes: Advanced Search

Use the advanced search option to facilitate long, complex Boolean searches. Click the Advanced button on the initial RegsLink Free Text Search screen to access this option.

Enter search term(s) and operator(s) in the In Citation: or In Entire Document: search boxes. Continue adding as many search terms and operators as necessary.
Click Select Databases.
Determine the regulations database(s) to be searched. By default, all three databases are selected. Remove the check mark from the database(s) you do not want searched by clicking the box to the left of the database.
To search specific federal titles or specific states, see the Regulations Databases Check Boxes .
Click the Search button.

Boolean and Proximity Operators

The following Boolean and Proximity Operators are available for use in the Boolean Search Boxes.

Operator	Example	Results
AND	hazard AND material	Pages with both the words “hazard” and “material”
OR	breathing OR respirator	Pages containing “breathing”, or “respirator”, or both
AND NOT	clothing AND NOT gloves	Pages with the word “clothing” but without occurrences of “gloves”
NEAR	water NEAR quality	Pages with “water” and “quality” in any order, within 50 words of each other

Example Search Tables

Boolean and Proximity Operators used in the Boolean Search Boxes can create a more precise search. You can insert operators into search terms instead of, or in addition to, the operators on the right side of each box.

To Search For	Example	Results
A phrase on a page	community right-to-know	Pages with the phrase “community right-to-know”
Both terms in the same page	water and quality	Pages with both the words “water” and “quality”
Either term in a page	emergency or urgent	Pages with the words “emergency” or “urgent”
The first term without the second term	clothing and not gloves	Pages with the word “clothing” but not “gloves”
Two words or phrases close to each other on a page	indoor near air	Pages with “indoor” and “air” close to each other; the closer and/or more often the occurrences, the higher the page ranking

Hints:

You can add parentheses to nest expressions within a search. The expressions in parentheses are evaluated before the rest of the search. For example, entering "(personal OR protective) AND gloves" first searches for pages that contain "personal" or "protective" (or both), then performs the AND search for pages that contain "gloves." The results would return pages that contain both "personal" and "gloves," and also pages that contain both "protective" and "gloves." If you did not use the parentheses in this sample search, the AND expression "protective AND gloves" would be evaluated before the OR expression. Without the parentheses, the pages found would consist of those that contain both "protective" and "gloves" (including those that contain "personal") and also those that contain "personal," though not containing "protective" or "gloves."
Use double quotes (“) to indicate that a Boolean or NEAR operator keyword should be ignored in your search. For example, “Abbott and Costello” will match pages with that phrase, not pages that match the Boolean expression. In addition to being an operator, the word and is a noise word in English.
The NEAR operator is similar to the AND operator in that NEAR returns a match if both words being searched for are in the same page. However, the NEAR operator differs from AND because the rank assigned by NEAR depends on the proximity of words. That is, the rank of a page with the searched-for words closer together is greater than or equal to the rank of a page where the words are farther apart. If the searched-for words are more than 50 words apart, they are not considered near enough, and the page is assigned a rank of zero.
The AND operator has a higher precedence than OR. For example, the first three searches are equal, but the fourth is not:
a AND b OR c
c OR a AND b
c OR (a AND b)
(c OR a) AND b

Wildcards

Wildcard operators help you find pages containing words similar to a given word.

To Search For	Example	Results
Words with the same prefix	protect*	Pages with words that have the prefix "protect," such as "protect," protective," and so on
Words based on the same stem word	teach**	Pages with words based on the same stem as "teach," such as "teaching," "taught," "teacher," and so on

Regulations Database Check Boxes

Before beginning any search (except a In Citation box search), remove the check mark from any of the regulatory database(s) you do not wish to search by clicking the box to the left of the database. You can select one, more than one, or all databases.

You can narrow the search in the CFR and state-specific regulations further by clicking the "Code of Federal Regulations" or "State Regulations" hypertext. This takes you to the Code of Federal Regulations and state-specific selection boxes.

To Search Specific Federal Titles or State Regulations:

From the Code of Federal Regulations or state-specific selection box, click the desired federal titles or states. You may choose as many federal titles or states as you wish.
Click the "up-arrow" at the top left corner or bottom left corner of the selection box to return to the Search screen.
Enter any search terms as outlined in Search Strategies.
Click the Search button.

To Search All Federal Titles or All State Regulations :

Click the Code of Federal Regulations and/or State Regulations check boxes. This searches all federal regulations and all state regulations.

Document Comparison Feature

The Document Comparison feature enables a new Integrated Index^® search to be initiated at any time without returning to the initial screen. The feature is very helpful if the regulatory information you are reviewing contains another citation, chemical, etc., about which you would like more information.

Once in a document, click the Document Comparison button and the Document Comparison option will appear at the top of the screen.
Highlight the word(s) about which you want more information.
Copy and paste the words to the Search Text: box using the Edit option from the toolbar or keyboard functions Ctrl C and Ctrl V. Internet Explorer 4 allows you to drag and drop the search term. Click the Search button.
Another search results list for the new search term will appear next to the document.
Continue clicking the resulting hypertext until you reach the desired document. Documents may be viewed side-by-side for easy comparison.