When thinking about keywords, you may come across some which could have variations on the ending of that word, or certain words that are spelt differently.

anxiety / anxieties

theatre / theater

tire / tireless / tiresome / tirelessly

colour / color

Wildcards can be used to replace the word endings, or letters within a word. The search performed will return all results containing the alternative words. Wildcards vary per database. Each database usually has an index of the symbols available, and where they should be used.

Anxiet*

Theat*

Tire*

Colo?r

If you need help with wildcards, contact us via chat or book a tutorial.

In BCU Library Search, wildcards are an asterisk (*) and a question mark (?).

? is a single character search

H?ppy - happy, hippy

* is a multiple character search

Cha*ter - chapter, charter, character etc.

Temp* - temporary, temperature, temple etc.