Search techniques: Truncation & Wildcards

Updated 2022
This video is taken from QUT Library's 'Study Smart: information research and literacy skills' tutorial. Module 2.2.2 Use search techniques http://studysmart.library.qut.edu.au/...

This video is licensed by QUT Library under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International 4.0 License (CC-BY-NC-SA)

Transcript:

Wildcards are a search technique which can help you look for words with different spelling variations.

For example, the Australian and American spellings of organisation can be retrieved by replacing the s letter with a question mark.

You can use truncation when you're looking for spelling variants or words that begin with the same letters. For example, if you search music* you find results including musician, musicians, musical.

Wildcard and Truncation symbols may vary from database to database. If you need more help, contact the library.
Updated January 2022