Truncation and wildcard searches are powerful tools used in databases to search for all forms of a word. Truncation is a search technique in which the ending of a word is replaced by a symbol, allowing different forms of the word to be searched simultaneously and increasing the number of search results found. A truncation symbol before a prefix or root word indicates that the word should start this way, regardless of how it ends. Adding a truncation symbol to the end of the root of a word tells the database to search for all forms of the word.
For example, searching genetics* will return results for genetics, genetic, and genetically. Similarly, searching children* will return results for child, children, and children's.Wildcard characters are another type of search tool used in databases. Wildcards are symbols that can be used to represent one or more characters in a search term. For example, searching wom?n will return results for both woman and women. Truncation and wildcard searches are useful tools for finding information quickly and accurately in databases.
Knowing how to use these techniques can help you get the most out of your database searches.
