Quotation Marks/Phrase Searching
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]. Library databases will interpret strings of terms without any quotation marks or Boolean operators as being connected by the term AND. This is likely to return results unrelated to your research question.
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