Truncation and Wildcard
Truncation:
Truncation symbol (* or # or ?) is tool used in databases to expand search results. Use the database's Help tab for verification of the correct symbol.
- What It Does: Truncation allows you to search for different word endings by using a root or base part of the word.
- How It Works: You use a symbol, typically an asterisk (*), at the end of the root word.
- Example:
- Searching for educat* will find results that include "education," "educator," "educate," etc. This is useful when you want to include all possible word variations.
- Searching for pharm* will find "pharmacology", "pharmacy", "pharmaceutical", etc.
- Searching for injur* finds "injured", "injury", "injuries", etc.
Wildcard:
Wildcard symbols are tools used in databases to find variations of words.
- What It Does: The wildcard symbol lets you search for different spellings or variations of a word by substituting one or more letters in the middle of the word.
- How It Works: A common wildcard symbol is the question mark (?), which replaces a single letter, or the asterisk (*) for multiple letters.
- Example:
- Searching for wom?n will find both "woman" and "women."
- Searching for col*r can find both "color" and "colour" if the asterisk (*) is used as a placeholder for missing characters.
These tools help refine searches and ensure you don’t miss relevant information due to word form variations or spelling.
Note: Please follow the rule that the root of your term should be at least four characters long.
