Finding Information - Information Literacy and Academic Integrity

Truncation

Truncation allows you to insert a symbol after the first part of a word (or stem) to find alternate spellings of the word. Databases use a variety of symbols for truncation. You will need to check the database help file to identify the truncation symbol used in each database.

Commonly used symbols
*	?	$
asterisk	question mark	dollar sign

Search examples using * as the truncation symbol

environment*	will find	environment, environmental
market*	will find	market, markets, marketing
advertis*	will find	advertise, advertising, advertisements