Truncation and wildcard symbols stand for one or
more letters within or at the end of a search term.
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. Common truncation symbols are: ? and *.
will return records on market, marketing,
markets. ? is used as the truncation
symbol, for example, in the library catalog.
will return records on advertise, advertised,
advertising, advertisement, advertisements.
* is used as the truncation symbol in InfoTrac
OneFile and Wilson Select Plus.
Wildcard symbols inserted within a word will retrieve word variants.
will return records on woman or women.
? is used as a wildcard symbol, in InfoTrac
OneFile and Expanded Academic ASAP.
will return records on receive--handy if you're
not sure how to spell it!
* is used as a wildcard symbol within words
in Health and WellnessResource Center.
