Truncation,
sometimes called stemming or
wildcarding, involves the use
of a punctuation mark at the end of a search term or after the trunk or
root of the search term. The
truncation symbol replaces an unlimited number of letters
following a word root.
Truncation is
useful in retrieving forms of
words with alternative endings or plural forms.
The most commonly used truncation
symbol is the asterisk
*
symbol
(found above the number 8 on your keyboard). Place the asterisk
at the point of the word where multiple endings may start.
Examples of Truncation:prison
*
-
will retrieve the words prison, prisons,
prisoner, prisoners, prisonization drink
*
- will retrieve the words drink, drinks,
drinker, drinkers, drinking
A keyword search
using truncation may look like this: driv
*
and drink
*
and high school student
*
prison
*
and drug
*
and parole
Truncation
is most often used when
searching
library periodical databases.
Although it is
available in some Web search engines.
Although the
asterisk * is the most commonly used
symbol, some
databases use other punctuation marks.
For example,
the Lexis/Nexis database (for
retrieving full text
newspaper articles) uses the exclamation
point ! as the truncation device (prison!,
drink!)
When using a new
database, try using the
asterisk for truncation. If that doesn't work, consult the
help screens of that
database.
Truncation, or
wildcard information is generally included in the search tips sections of
databases.
