One of my favorite features of BillTrack50 is our Keyword column. This column contains the most important words from the bill, as interpreted by IBM Watson. Although these results aren’t completely perfect, as they’ll often list state names or other information you already know, they do often reveal very helpful information which can assist you in writing your queries and reviewing your results.
Adding Keywords to Your Bill Sheet
To start using the keywords column you’ll need to make it visible. Simply go to the account menu (the red button at the top with your name on it) and choose Manage Bill Templates. 
Click the edit button next to the template you are using,
and check the box to make it visible. You can also change the size and/or order of the keyword column at this point.
Then click the Save button at the bottom and you are done. Depending on how you use the keywords, you might want to create a new template that has the Keyword List visible and wide, along with a few other helpful items, as a “research template”. That will let you switch your bill sheet to a research configuration while you are working on your search, and then back to your previewed reviewing configuration once you are ready to start reading bills. Remember you can switch which template you are using back and forth any time on the manage tab of the bill sheet.
Using Keywords to Expand your Search
When you are exploring a new topic area that you aren’t already familiar with, you may not know all of the language the different states might use around the topic. The keyword column can be a great help in identifying key words and phrases you might want to include in your query.
For example, after watching a John Oliver episode, I wanted to create a bill sheet to search for civil forfeiture. Not yet knowing very much about the topic yet I simply started with civil forfeiture as a “near” search. Look at the results in the Keywords column:
Here I can see Civil Forfeiture, of course, but also Forfeiture Special Fund, Asset Forfeiture, Forfeiture Reform, Forfeiture Act, and so on. I can choose the phrases that seem relevant to what I want to my query tab; I can even just copy and paste, remembering to add quotes around phrases. If you are trying to add these words to broaden your search make sure all the words and phrases are in the “any of” box. After I’ve added those words I can look at the keyword column again to see what new language has turned up. With a little back and forth you can see how you can quickly start to get the feel for what’s out there.
Using Keywords to Refine your Search
Using the above civil forfeiture example, we can also see some ways we might refine our search. First, you might discover the topic is broad than you thought, and that you want to hone in on a specific aspect of the topic, such as looking for things around forfeiture funds; just add Fund to the “all of” box. I can also see I’m getting some bills about criminal matters too, because those bills use similar words, so I might want to remove Criminal Forfeiture or Drug Asset Forfeiture by adding those phrases to the “none of” box. Finally, I can use the keywords as a bare bones summary so I can take a first pass reviewing bills on a new bill sheet and remove ones that are obviously not relevant, perhaps ones congratulating someone or dedicating a day to a specific cause. You can also use the keywords in combination with the filter (the magnifying box button below the bill sheet) to do a more targeted “none of” type review, where you filter bills that have certain words but then glance through them before actually removing them.
As always, feel free to contact us if you’d like help setting up your keyword column, or would like some help fine tuning your search using the keywords for inspiration.
About BillTrack50 – BillTrack50 is a user friendly free service that provides legislation research in all 50 states and federally. BillTrack50 also offers legislation and regulation tracking across the nation with tools to help organization stay on top of changes (bill sheets and alerts) and share legislation they are tracking with key stakeholders (legislator scorecards, widgets and stakeholder pages). If you are interested in learning more about how BillTrack50 saves organizations time and money, sign up for a demo and try it out BillTrack50 Pro for a month, for free.