Searching by Topic
Boolean Operators
Truncation & Wildcards
Descriptors
Another search strategy you may find helpful is the use of truncation or wildcard symbols. Often your search words will have various forms or endings, all of which may be relevant to include in your results. For example, you would want articles that discuss Asperger's syndrome as well as Asperger syndrome.
To retrieve more accurate results, most databases let you add a symbol to a word stem to pick up variant word endings (truncation) or spellings (wildcards). 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 (!). To continue with our example, you might want to search for Asperger* syndrome.
Unfortunately, databases do not use standardized truncation symbols, so it is necessary to consult the help screens in the database or ask a librarian in order to determine what the correct symbol is.
