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Truncation and Wild
Cards
Truncation and wildcard symbols stand for one or more letters within,
or at the end of, a search term.
It is important to note that the symbols used for this will vary widely from one research tool to another. The ?, $, and * symbols are most common, but they will behave differently in different databases or search engines. |
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Truncation
Added to the stem of a word, a truncation symbol will find that stem
plus anything that comes after it. The symbol used to truncate a word
depends upon the database or Web search engine you are using. |
market?
will return records on market, marketing, markets. ? is used as the truncation symbol, for example, in
ABI/Inform
Global and the library catalog. |
pig*
will
return records on pig, pigment, pigmentation, pigments, pigs. |
advertis*
will
return records on advertise, advertised, advertising, advertisement,
advertisements.
* is used as the truncation symbol in Academic Source Complete and
Wilson Web databases. |
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Wildcards
Wildcard symbols inserted within a word will retrieve word variants.
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wom?n
will
return records on woman or women. ? is used as a wildcard symbol, for example, in
Academic Source Complete and Wilson Web databases. |
col*r
will
return records on color or colour. |
rec*ve
will return records
on receive--handy if you're not sure how to spell it!
* is used as a wildcard symbol within words in ABI/Inform Global. |
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