Searches for long-lived particles at CMS

I will explain the features of the CMS detector that make it effective at identifying long-lived exotic particles. I will then briefly summarize each of the main CMS searches for long-lived particles (details will follow in subsequent talks). My goal will be to give you an overview of the techniques CMS uses to detect the various signatures of long-lived exotica. In addition, I will explore how well these searches fit together to cover the full phase-space, and also look at how CMS seeks to present limits in a model-independent way.