Wildcards and Truncation
One thing that often appears in a “help” screen is a list of wildcards and truncation.
A wildcard is a filler. A question mark (?) is used for single character searching. An asterisk (*) is used for multiple character searching.
Example: The query wom?n finds the words woman, women, womyn, etc.
For truncation, a special character, often the asterisk, is used to replace the end of words.
Example: biolog* finds biology, biological, etc.
TIP: Help from the Search Engine
Something that most people overlook, until they are desperate, is the “help” or “tips” link on a search page. That help box can often lead you to understanding that specific search engine and will help you understand if it uses any special characters or if the engine is built for specific purposes.