A Wildcard character is used to search for variations of a search term, to maximize results.

There are two common types of Wildcard operators.  The first is an asterisk (*). It is typically used at the end of a root word and may specify any number of characters.  For example, searching for "educat*" would tell the database to look for all possible endings and results could include: educate, educated, education, educational or educator.  

The second common Wildcard character is a question mark (?), which is used to represent a single letter anywhere in a word (like the blank tile in a game of Scrabble). This type of Wildcard character is often useful when there are variable spellings for a word. For example, if you type "gr?y", your search will include "gray" and "grey".

Each of the Library's databases may use Wildcards differently and have additional operators and tools for manipulating your search queries. To find out what works in your favorite database or search engine, look up the search tools available to you in the Help Section (and yes, believe it or not, even Google has a help section!)