Punctuation can also be used to search more precisely in databases and search engines.
Placing quotation marks around multiple keywords tells the database to search for these words all together as a phrase. For example, when you enter "Black Plague," instead of searching for everything Black and everything Plague, you are searching for the phrase Black Plague.
The asterisk symbol (*) can be used to truncate your keywords, or search for all of the various endings of a word. For example, truncating the keyword cultural to cultur* will tell the database to search for...
culture
cultures
cultural
culturally
cultured
culturing