Truncation and Wildcards

There are other ways to manipulate your search terms. You can do this with truncation and wildcards. Truncation and wildcard operators vary from database to database, please check the help function for further information.

Truncation

Using a truncation symbol (*) in your search allows you to search for alternate endings of a word stem. For instance:

law* retrieves law, laws, lawyer, lawless, lawlessness (or even) lawnmower

The symbol most commonly used for truncation is the asterix (* or shift 8) however symbols do vary across databases. The Lexis and Westlaw databases use an exclamation mark (!) at the end of a word stem for truncation searching.

Wildcards

Wildcards allow you to replace one letter in a word with another letter. This search function is helpful for searching across British and American spellings, and also when you are not sure about the exact spelling of a word. For instance:

organi?ation retrieves both organisation and organization

As in the above example, the symbol most commonly used is a question mark (?), though symbols do vary across databases. The Lexis and Westlaw databases use an asterix symbol (*) for wildcard searching.

For more information about truncation and Boolean operators see our Database Searching "How-to" Guide.

Task: Try it Yourself!