Wednesday, March 18, 2009

WilsonWeb: library literature and information science

Truncation and Wildcards:
The truncation symbol (*) serves as a substitute for zero or a string or characters. For example, the search:cat* retrieves catalyst, catatonic, as well as categoryM*cdonald retrieves both macdonald and mcdonald

The wildcard symbol (?) serves as a substitute for a single alphanumeric character. It is particularly useful when you are unsure of spelling.

For example, the search einst??n retrieves the correctly spelled Einstein (Albert Einstein).
You can also use the operator in a constructed search query to specify a pattern or range of characters.

For example, the search
`bank{s,er,ing}` locates one of each pattern, as in banks, banker, and banking
`c[auo]t` locates one of any character, as in cat, cut, cot

In the Basic Search and Advanced Search screens, when you search on a single term the search engine will find documents that include that term as well as variations on the term as a root. For example, if you search for condition, the results will include documents with the words conditioning and conditioner. To restrict your search to the term itself, enclose it in quotation marks; “condition” will retrieve only those documents with that term.

In the Browse screen, you can look for variations of a name or term.

From: WilsonWeb Quick Reference Guide
http://www.hwwilson.com/Documentation/WilsonWeb/wweb_ng_QRG/wweb_ng_qrg_toc.htm

Additional References
Quick Tips for Searching WilsonWeb
http://wilsonweb.hwwilson.com/Documentation/WilsonWeb/tutorial/tutorial_bibliographic.pdf
WilsonWeb Tutorial
http://www.hwwilson.com/Documentation/WilsonWeb/tutorial/tutorial.htm Click on Bibliographic Databases. Read the entire 10 page pdf file. (Required reading)
Wilson Web System Reviews
http://www.hwwilson.com/reviews/wilsonweb_review.htm Excerpts of reviews from Library Journal and Searcher. Fulltext of reviews available on EBSCOHOST Academic Search Premier.

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