Truncate -- to shorten or cut off at the end.

In order to search for information in a database more effectively, a keyword may be searched in plural and singular form, or as a root word with multiple endings. This is refered to as using truncation. Take the term car, this term is easily found in a database, but there could be instances where it is used as the plural, cars, instead of the singular, car. An example of a word root is child, you might also find articles where the term is used as children instead, thus child becomes the root word. There is a way to account for all possible endings of a word and search that word by it's root. The process is called truncation, or truncate, to cut off.

Using truncation in a database is a sophisticated operation, but it can easily be handled with a little practice. Look at the examples below to see which words truncation would apply to.

EXAMPLE:

The following terms have various endings that when utilized can make a search more effective and efficient.

Each electronic database you use will have a truncation symbol, it should be listed on a help screen. Generally it is either an asterisk *, question mark ?, or a plus sign +. Place the symbol in the proper place at the root of the word you want to truncate.

EXAMPLE:

Here are some actual examples of how using truncation affects the amount of results you retrieve on a database search. These searches were executed on the ERIC Database in EBSCOhost, the truncation symbol for that database is the asterisk (*).

Using truncation on the term "inclustion" resulted in the retrieval of 33 more articles, the additional term that the database found was "inclusive".

Using truncation on the term "diet" resulted in the retrieval of 48 more articles, the additional terms that the database found were "dietary" and "dietetic".

Using truncation on the term "nutrition" resulted in the retrieval of 34 more articles, the additional terms that the database found were "nutritional" and "nutritionists".

As you gain more experience using truncation you will notice that you will need to be careful with root and singular words. Some words may have too many endings that all mean something different. Take a look at these two examples to get an idea.