Truncation/Wildcards

When searching databases or Websites, it is useful to understand the concept of truncation and wildcards.

For example, if you are seeking articles about the cataloging of materials in libraries, you might type:
catalog or catalogue or catalogs or catalogues or cataloging -- and as many other variations as you could think of to gather all items about cataloging.

If you are using a database or search engine that permits truncation, however, you would type:

catalog* or catalog? -- and achieve the same result. The * or ? are usually used to represent any number of unknown letters, including none.

A wildcard is a symbol that is used to replace exactly one or zero characters. It would be ideal to use if you were searching for:

woman or women

wom?n would retrieve either one.

Another application would be if you were searching for:

catalog or catalogue not cataloging

You would type:

catalog??

You should check the Search Tips or Help section of any search engine or database you are searching to find out whether truncation is permitted and what characters are used. In addition to the * and ?, some programs use # or $ or other symbols to represent the truncation of words. The truncation symbols are usually permitted anywhere in a word except as the first character.