• This is when you type the root of a word, then put an asterisk (*) at the end.
• This tells the database to give you results containing any possible word that can be formed from that root.
• Use this when you’re not sure whether you should look for a singular, plural or possessive form of a keyword.
• This can be extra useful when you realize there are several forms of a word that authors may have used...and you don't feel like typing out all the possibilities with OR in between them.

Example: Instead of searching for:

women AND images AND media

or having to type:

(women OR women's OR woman OR woman's) AND (image OR images) AND media

try:

wom* AND image* AND media

As that will retrieve results containing:  women, woman, women’s, woman’s,  as well as: image, images