1. Skim the questions in the **Related** sidebar, sometimes it is that obvious.
 2. Type a *very* abbreviated version of the question in the search bar, check the first 2-3 results. This doesn't even need to be a complete sentence or grammatically correct.
 3. Look for any code/error messages in the question. Copy these verbatim into the search window. If that doesn't work, try removing the parts of the message that are variable (like exact `/dev/...` names or packages)
 4. Replace generic terms like `photo viewer` with `Eye of Gnome` or `Shotwell`, and search again.
 5. Check the OP's profile, I frequently find several variants of the same question (not necessarily a bad thing, they are refining their attempts to get an answer by re-posting rather than editing the original).
 6. Just plain-old remembering very common questions, frequently used as the duplicate to link to.
 7. Ask in chat. Crowd-source the effort if you are sure it's a dupe but can't find the exact one.
 8. @Seth's comment above: click **flag** or **close** and check the suggestions that come up in the Duplicate dialog, see if the suggested dupes that come up are a match. For a tip on searching there, see https://meta.askubuntu.com/questions/7293/how-do-i-quickly-find-the-duplicate-questions-im-searching-for-when-flagging-cl
 9. Add tags to your search terms using square brackets, eg `[kernel] [RAM]`  
 10. If you know a particular user often answers questions about this topic, go to their profile so that their userID appears in the search box, then add the tag and/or keyword to the search box, eg `user:93977 [uefi] GPT`
 11. Exclude answers from the search using `is:q`
12. Google with `site:askubuntu.con`