An Online Tutorial Taking You Through the Steps of the Library Research Process Truncation

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Tutorial Contents:
  1. Library Map & Virtual Tour
  2. Avoiding Impulse Buys
  3. Size & Shape of Information
  4. Most Bang for Your Buck
  5. Trying it on for Size
  6. Don't Shoplift!


Since some words have many different possible variations, it is nice to be able to conduct one search that will search for all these possible variations.  Truncation is a symbol used at the end of the root form of a word to search for all possible variant endings.  Different databases use different truncation symbols.  Refer to the attached Database Comparison Chart to see the different truncation symbols used by the databases MCC subscribes to.  You can print the chart for later reference.  Remember to close the document to return to the tutorial.

Database Comparison Chart

Below is an example of truncation where the truncation symbol is a question mark.

hero?

This will retrieve the words hero, heroic, heroism, heroes, heroine, heroin, etc.

Using truncation can be useful for "covering all your bases," but at the same time you may retrieve results that are not relevant to your topic.  As in the above example you might get sources on the drug heroin.

Some databases will automatically search for variant endings for the terms you enter making truncation unnecessary.

 

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