The content of this module is adapted for Moye Library from Coastal Carolina Community College's H5P modules, developed and shared by Samantha O'Connor.
Tell the database exactly what you want it to find by using these strategies!
Wildcards and Truncations
Use a wildcard when you need to be able to interchange one letter in a search term.
Both # and ? will function as wildcards in Worldcat Discovery.
Example: You want to include man or men/woman or women because your search results need to include human males/human females.
m#n will return men and man---it will also return min, mon, etc.
Wom?n will return woman, woman, womyn...
If you need to include all words that start with the same letters, try adding * to the end of these letters.
Example: My search results could include surgeon or surgery and still be relevant. I need to find articles that include surgery, surgeon, and surgical.
Search term: surg* will give results that begin in surg and end in anything, including surgeon, surgery, surgical, surge, etc.
Search for phrases by using quotation marks.
Putting a set of words in quotation marks will pull them together and find them as a phrase.
Example: “Book of Job” will find information about the Book of Job in that order. If the article isn’t relevant to the “Book of Job” it will not come up.
Searching for Book of Job without quotes will find things related to book/books and/or job...this could be Job in the bible, someone named Job, or information about job availability.
Quotes are only useful if you NEED to search for a set of words together as a phrase. Examples of words that make sense to search as a phrase include words commonly used together, like "physical education," "mindfulness meditation," etc.
If you don't know enough about your topic to get started, use a reference source like CREDO Reference to find out some basic information and get ideas for key words. A list of general online reference sources with links is included on the previous page.
What kind of search best suits what you need to find?
Would you prefer to do a basic or an advanced search?
How would you find information on your research question using 2-3 keywords? (These words should pull together main ideas about your research topic or the major concepts in your research question.)
Search the library databases using these terms. Are you finding sources that look useful to you? Are they in the format that you need?
Are you getting too much information? Not enough information?
Can you limit your search results or change your keywords to find more useful information?
Find a few good sources. Look for words in the titles and descriptions of these sources to add to your search or change it.