Quotation Marks
Using quotation marks in a search tells the database that you are looking for an exact phrase. Because of this, you only need to use quotation marks for a concept that is two or more words. For example if you were researching Social Security, using quotation marks ["social security"] would tell the database that you only want search results where Social Security appears as a phrase.
Without the quotation marks, the database actually reads your search as [social AND security]. This is an important concept to remember. Library databases will interpret strings of terms without any quotation marks or Boolean operators as being connected by the term AND. For example a search for [climate change glaciers] is translated by the database as [climate AND change AND glaciers]. This could return search results that are unrelated to your information need.
Truncation and Wild Cards
Truncation refers to shortening a word or eliminating characters in order to pick up variant terms in a database. Symbols are used for truncation. The most common symbols are the asterisk (*), the question mark (?), the pound sign (#), or a dollar sign ($). These symbols vary from database to database but are often indicated on a database's "Help" page. Examples of truncation:
- child* - includes child and children
- disab* - includes disabled, disability, disabilities
- environment* - includes environment, environments, environmental, environmentalist, etc.
Wildcards are used for internal truncation. This will replace a single character in a search term. This is useful if a word has a letter difference between American English and British English or if a word is irregularly pluralized. The symbols used are different from regular truncation, but can be determined on a database's "Help" page. Examples of using the wildcard:
- wom?n - includes woman and women
- colo?r - includes color and colour