Starting your research

Look for:

• Words that can have multiple endings on a common stem.  Example: educat can end various ways: educate, education, educating, educated
• Words that are spelled differently, but mean the same thing.  Example:  color, colour
• Truncation/wildcard symbols substitute for the characters that vary in the word.   Databases may use different symbols for truncation; check the help screens to find out which symbols are used.

Truncation:

• Truncation can also be called stemming
• It broadens your search by including various word endings and spellings.
• To use truncation, enter the root of a word and put the truncation symbol at the end.
• The database will return results that include any ending of that root word.
• Examples:
  • violen* = violent, violence
  • child* = child, childs, children, childrens, childhood
  • student* = student, students (don't assume the database looks for both singular and plural unless you ask it to)
• Truncation symbols may vary by database; common symbols include: *, !, ?, or #

Wildcards:

• Similar to truncation, wildcards substitute a symbol for one letter of a word.
• It can occur in the middle, as well as at the end of the word
• This is useful if a word is spelled in different ways, but still has the same meaning.
• Examples:
  • wom!n = woman, women
  • colo?r = color, colour
  • theat?? = theater, theatre

If you have questions about applying this technique to your search, Ask Us!