Often your search words will have various forms or endings, all of which may be relevant to include in your results. For example, we would want articles that discuss anthrax in relation to both the singular and plural forms of biological weapons. We may also be interested in articles that mention possible anthrax vaccines or vaccinations.

To retrieve more accurate results, most databases let you add a symbol to a word stem to pick up variant word endings or spellings. These are known as truncation and wildcard symbols. The most commonly used symbols are the asterisk (*) or the question mark (?), but some resources use the number/pound sign (#), the dollar sign ($), percent symbol (%), or exclamation point (!).

Unfortunately, databases do not use standardized truncation symbols, so it is necessary to consult the online help or ask your librarian to determine what the correct symbol is.