The wildcard is anadvanced search techniquethat can be used tomaximize your search results in librarydatabases.Wildcards are used in search terms to represent one or more other characters.
The two most commonly used wildcards are:
Anasterisk(*) may be used to specify any number of characters. It is typically usedat the end of a root word, when it is referred to as "truncation." This is great when you want to search for variantendings of a root word.
For example: searching for educat* would tell the database to look for all possible endings to that root. Results will include educate, educated, education, educational or educator.Use the truncation symbol with caution. Depending on your topic, it may be better to use an OR.
For example educationOR educational.
Aquestion mark(?) may be used to represent a single character, anywhere in the word. It is most useful when there arevariable spellingsfor a word, and you want to search for all variants at once.
For example, searching for wom?nwould return bothwomen and woman.
