Developing Effective Search Strategies

Truncation Strategies

Using "truncation"  symbols (also called "wildcard" symbols) allows you to search multiple forms of a term--singular/plural, variable spellings, etc. The most common truncation symbols are the asterisk ( * ), the question mark ( ? ), and the dollar sign ( $ ). You should use such symbols when you are uncertain how a word is spelled, when you want to find all possible spellings or endings, or  when you want to find only certain endings. 

Without truncation or substitution, you would have to perform a separate search for each spelling and each ending.  You may not know all of the possible spellings and endings for a word. 

If you use truncation, you won't need to perform separate searches; one search will find all the results that can be found.

The chart below shows some examples of searches conducted using truncation symbols.

Examples of "Wildcard" Searches
Search Statement	Results
child*	children, childhood, Childreth
comput*	computers, computing, computed
bee*	beer, beet, Beethoven, been, bees, etc. (As this example illustrates, truncating too soon results in faulty results!)

Please note:  Truncation symbols vary from database to database. You should consult a given database's "help" system to see what symbols it uses and how they are used.

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