What's in this article:
- Truncation: Finding Similar Spellings
- Wildcard: Multiple Character Searching
- Proximity: Finding Terms Used Together
Truncation: Finding Similar Spellings
You can find words with spellings similar to your search term by using the tilde (~) symbol at the end of a search term.
In the example above, search results include items with dostoyevsky in the item title field, as well as variant spellings such as dostoevsky, dostoievski, dostoevsky, dostoyevski, dostoevskii, dostoevski, etc.
Note: This way of searching encompasses a very large number of words. Narrowing this kind of search to the item title or another field is recommended. The first letter always remains the same.
Wildcard: Multiple Character Searching
Wildcards take the place of one or more characters in a search term. A question mark (?) is used for single character searching. An asterisk (*) is used for multiple character searching.
Wildcards are used to search for alternate spellings and variations on a root word. Wildcard characters cannot be used in place of the first letter of a word or within an exact phrase search, and word roots must contain at least three letters preceding a wildcard. For example:
Advanced Search Tips:
- The root word for any wildcard search must contain at least three letters preceding a wildcard, so for example," sm&th" will not return results, but "run&" will.
- To limit your results to content in a specific language, use the Library of Congress's three letter MARC language codes
Proximity Searching: Finding Terms used Together
JSTOR search allows you to find terms that are within a set number of words of each other. In Basic Search, use the tilde (~) symbol followed by a number to set the desired proximity.
In this example, your search will return results with the terms debt and forgiveness within ten words of each other.
So, whereas a search for "debt forgiveness" within quotation marks will give you search results for that exact phrase, a search for debt forgiveness~10 will give you results that include both the words "debt" and "forgiveness" within 10 words of each other.
In Advanced Search, use the Boolean drop-down boxes to combine search terms with NEAR 5/10/25. The NEAR operator looks for the combinations of keywords within 5, 10, or 25 words places of each other.
The NEAR operator only works when searching for single keyword combinations. For example, you may search for cat NEAR 5 dog, but not "domesticated cat" NEAR 5 dog.
You may increase the importance of any term in your search by using the caret (^) symbol followed by a number that represents the rise in relevance.
In the example of migration^7 geese, an occurrence of the word migration in an item is seven times more important than the word geese.