4.5: Keyword adjustment
- Page ID
- 298443
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\(\newcommand{\avec}{\mathbf a}\) \(\newcommand{\bvec}{\mathbf b}\) \(\newcommand{\cvec}{\mathbf c}\) \(\newcommand{\dvec}{\mathbf d}\) \(\newcommand{\dtil}{\widetilde{\mathbf d}}\) \(\newcommand{\evec}{\mathbf e}\) \(\newcommand{\fvec}{\mathbf f}\) \(\newcommand{\nvec}{\mathbf n}\) \(\newcommand{\pvec}{\mathbf p}\) \(\newcommand{\qvec}{\mathbf q}\) \(\newcommand{\svec}{\mathbf s}\) \(\newcommand{\tvec}{\mathbf t}\) \(\newcommand{\uvec}{\mathbf u}\) \(\newcommand{\vvec}{\mathbf v}\) \(\newcommand{\wvec}{\mathbf w}\) \(\newcommand{\xvec}{\mathbf x}\) \(\newcommand{\yvec}{\mathbf y}\) \(\newcommand{\zvec}{\mathbf z}\) \(\newcommand{\rvec}{\mathbf r}\) \(\newcommand{\mvec}{\mathbf m}\) \(\newcommand{\zerovec}{\mathbf 0}\) \(\newcommand{\onevec}{\mathbf 1}\) \(\newcommand{\real}{\mathbb R}\) \(\newcommand{\twovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\ctwovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\threevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cthreevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\mattwo}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{rr}#1 \amp #2 \\ #3 \amp #4 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\laspan}[1]{\text{Span}\{#1\}}\) \(\newcommand{\bcal}{\cal B}\) \(\newcommand{\ccal}{\cal C}\) \(\newcommand{\scal}{\cal S}\) \(\newcommand{\wcal}{\cal W}\) \(\newcommand{\ecal}{\cal E}\) \(\newcommand{\coords}[2]{\left\{#1\right\}_{#2}}\) \(\newcommand{\gray}[1]{\color{gray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\lgray}[1]{\color{lightgray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\rank}{\operatorname{rank}}\) \(\newcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\col}{\text{Col}}\) \(\renewcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\nul}{\text{Nul}}\) \(\newcommand{\var}{\text{Var}}\) \(\newcommand{\corr}{\text{corr}}\) \(\newcommand{\len}[1]{\left|#1\right|}\) \(\newcommand{\bbar}{\overline{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bhat}{\widehat{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bperp}{\bvec^\perp}\) \(\newcommand{\xhat}{\widehat{\xvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\vhat}{\widehat{\vvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\uhat}{\widehat{\uvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\what}{\widehat{\wvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\Sighat}{\widehat{\Sigma}}\) \(\newcommand{\lt}{<}\) \(\newcommand{\gt}{>}\) \(\newcommand{\amp}{&}\) \(\definecolor{fillinmathshade}{gray}{0.9}\)Truncation and Wildcards
Truncation and wildcards come in handy when the words you want to search have slight variations. Perhaps just one letter could broaden your search. For example: perhaps you want to find both the singular and the plural of a word: turtle and turtles, woman and women. Or perhaps you want to find both the American English word color and the British English word colour. This can be done using truncation and wildcards which saves you an additional search and ensures you capture all relevant results. Some help screens for some databases will call truncation a type of wildcard. Check the database help screens to determine what symbols to use for truncation and wildcards and what happens when you use them. Each database is different. While truncation, as described below is generally standard, wildcard searching varies greatly from database to database. A common usage follows the truncation description below.
Truncation
To truncate means to cut off. In most databases, by adding a symbol to a word that you cut off will garner results that have all the permutations of that word the database knows that begin with the letters you typed in. For example, pira* will find pirate, pirates, piracy. But this is a bad example, because it will also find the word piranha and piranhas and so on. So it is very important that you cut off your words where it makes sense or you could end up with piranhas or worse. It is an easy way to search the singular and plural of a word at the same time. If all you are interested in is a pirate or two, search the term pirate*.
The asterisk (* shift 8 on your keyboard * ) is the most often used symbol, but you might find the rare database that uses other symbols for truncation such as a dollar sign or a question mark. Even rarer databases allow for left hand truncation meaning you can ask the database to find variant beginnings of words instead of endings.
Wildcards
Using wildcards is a way of replacing one letter within a word or at the end of a word. When wanting to get both the singular and the plural of a words such as women and woman, the last vowel can be replaced with a wildcard symbol: wom?n. Both words would then be searched. Using a wildcard is also useful when searching for words that are spelled differently in British English. For example, color is spelled colour. Not all databases allow this and the symbol for this may also vary. The most commonly used symbols are a number sign (#) or a question mark (?). So if you want to include resources that may have been written by our cousins across the pond, you may choose to type colo#r. That would retrieve items with both color and colour in them because the # replaces one letter or is ignored by the search. What would you expect wom?n to find?
The bottom line to know about truncation and wildcards is that they exist, that they are defined and used differently from database to database and that they can expand your results. Check the databases’ help screens and experiment to see just what results you get.