If you want to search for variations of similar words without having to type multiple words you can use wildcards as place holders. Some wildcards take the place of one letter while others take the place of multiple letters. Example: comput* In this case the wildcard is represented by the * symbol. The wildcard is taking the place of multiple letters thus it is finding all words that begin with comput. The search engine results will include compute, computer, computing, and computers. Example: wom?n In this case the wildcard is represented by the ?. The wildcard is taking the place of one letter in the middle of the word. The search engine results will include women and woman. Different search engines use different symbols for wildcards so it is important that you check the help files of a search engine to see what symbols you can use. Closely related to wildcards is the concept of stemming. Some search engines will search for variations of a word root. For example, if you use the word swim in your query the search engine may also look for swimming and swimmer without you having to tell it to do so.