Example: adolescen* retrieves adolescent, adolescents, or adolescence

Wildcards — a symbol used to represent any character. Wildcards can usually be used at the end of a word or within a word. The pound symbol (#) is used in many databases as a wildcard. You can use this symbol to search variant spellings of a word. You can use more than one pound sign to stand in for more than one character. Each pound sign represents 0-1 characters.

Example: colo#r retrieves color or colour

Boolean connectors are all about sets. There are three Boolean connectors:

Think of each keyword as having a "set" of results that are connected with it. These sets can be combined to produce a variety of results. Best to use Boolean Connectors as ALL CAPS!

AND is a connector that requires both words to be present in each record in the results. Use AND to narrow your search.
Example: Television AND violence
OR is a connector that allows either word to be present in each record in the results. Use OR to expand your search.
Example: Adolescents OR teenagers
NOT is a connector that requires the first word be present in each record in the results, but only if the record does not contain the second word.
Example: High School NOT Elementary
or
Mexico NOT New