• The asterisk (*) represents any group of characters, including no character.

• The question mark (?) represents any single character.

• The dollar sign ($) represents zero or one character (useful when searching for expressions).

General Rules about Wildcards

• Wildcards may be used inside or at the end of search terms -- but not at the beginning. For example, sul*ur is allowed, but *ploid is not.

• When you search by Topic or Title, you must use at least three characters before the asterisk, question mark, or dollar sign or your search will generate an error.

• When you search by any other field (except the Topic and Title fields), you must use at least one character before the asterisk, question mark, or dollar sign or your search will generate an error.

• You cannot use wildcards after special characters (/ @ #) and punctuation (. , : ; !).

• You cannot use wildcards in a publication year search. For example, 2007 is OK but 200* is not.

• You cannot search on a wildcard if it appears in a word or name.

Useful Tips

• The asterisk is useful when you truncate publication titles. For example, Cellular* finds Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology and Cellular Signalling.

• The dollar sign is useful for finding both the British and American spellings of the same word. For example, flavo$r finds flavor and flavour.

• The dollar sign is useful for searching last names of authors that may contain a space, hyphen or apostrophe.

• The question mark is useful for searching last names of authors where the last character is unknown. For example, Barthold? finds Bartholdi and Bartholdy. It will not find Barthod.

Asterisk (*) Examples

s*food matches:
seafood
soyfood

enzym* matches:
enzyme
enzymes
enzymatic
enzymic

Hof*man* matches:
Hofman
Hofmann
Hoffman
Hoffmann

Question Mark (?) Example

wom?n matches:
woman
women

Dollar Sign ($) Examples

colo$r matches:
color
colour

grain$ matches:
grain
grains

Multi-wildcard Example

organi?ation* matches:
organisation
organisations
organisational
organization
organizations
organizational