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Truncation allows you to search for alternate forms of words, in one, efficient step. To truncate a word, shorten the word to its root, then add a special character (*, $, !). When truncating, be sure to include enough of the search word to make it meaningful. For example, if you wanted to search for alternative forms of the word "psychology", a good choice would be to truncate it as "psycholog." This will search words such as psychology, and psychological. You wouldn't, however, want to truncate after the "psych". If you did, your search would include words such as psychotic, psychosomatic, psychoactive, psychosis, etc.
Different indexes and databases use different symbols after the root word to accomplish truncation. If you are unsure of the truncation symbol for the database you are using, consult the help section for that resource. The most common truncation symbols are: *, $, !
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Symbol |
Database |
Example |
Try It |
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* |
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psycholog* |
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$ |
psycholog$ |
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! |
psycholog! |
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