Limiters and filters are criteria that you use to reduce the number of search results to a more manageable level.
Sometimes when you do a search, you get too many results to look at. Filters are what you use on a results page to try to reduce the number of results to a more manageable number. Limiters are what you use on the search page, before you do a search, to limit the number of results that you will see when you run the search.
Limiters reduce the number of results you will see before you search.
Filters reduce the number of results you see after you search.
Other than that, filters and limiters are exactly the same - the only difference is when they are applied (and people often use them interchangeably).
Example: here's a Business Source Elite search for "inflation":
203,537 results is a lot. But the number can be reduced by applying the Full Text and Peer Review filters
That's a big reduction in the number of results!
When available, Full Text and Peer Reviewed might be the best filters/limiters to use.
Full Text is an important filter/limiter because if you don't use it, you'll see lots of results where there's just the detail page with title and abstract only. If you want to read the whole of an article that's one of your search results, click the Full-Text button to ensure that all results have the full text available.
If you are looking for scholarly/academic sources (and this may be specified in your coursework/assignment instructions), click the Peer Reviewed button to make sure that all your results come from scholarly information sources.
