Archive:

1. Type in exactly what you are looking for. Search looks for an exact match of every word you enter into the search box.

2. If you type more than one word into the search box, search will return only articles that have ALL of those words. Search assumes an AND between search terms. It does not assume that the words should be near each other on the article page.

3. Put phrases or names in quotation marks. George Bush returns any article that mentions George AND any bush. "George Bush" returns only articles that mentions George Bush.

4. You can search by author if the name appeared on the article page. To find all of the articles Hugh Sidey wrote about the Kennedys, you would enter: kennedy "Hugh Sidey"

5. Search is not case sensitive. You can enter your search term(s) using capital, lowercase, or mixed-case letters.

6. Spell the keywords as they would have been spelled during the years you are interested in. For example, during the 1920's and 1930's, "theater" was more commonly spelled "theatre" and "Iraq" was spelled "Irak."

7. If you want to do an "or" search — for example, find articles that have either Iraq OR Irak, you must do 2 separate searches. Iraq gives almost 13,000 results, Irak yields 67 results, but typing in both Iraq and Irak gives zero results.

8. If you limit your search by date keep in mind that date refers to the date of the issue that would be reporting on the event, not the date of the event.

9. If you are looking for an older article but are not sure of the date range, sort your search results by oldest first. Sorting by oldest first will also help you find TIME's first mention of your search term.

10. Initials should include the period if that is how they usually appear in print. USSR gets 15 results, U.S.S.R. gets 3129. George W Bush gets 17 results, George W. Bush gets 1353.

11. Advanced search enables you to search for cover stories, by article length, or within specific sections of the magazine. Use the "Appearing in" box to search all cover stories, since it is only recently that cover stories were treated as their own section in the magazine.

12. Skillful searching is a trial-and-error process. Sometimes the best way to tweak your search terms is by reading some of your first search results to get new ideas for other words or phrases that you could try in the search box.

Be sure to Ask the Archivist if you need more help finding what you are searching for.