Truncation

Trucation will expand your serach and can save time. Truncation basically means using a "root word" or partial word (beginning letters words have in common) along with a "wildcard character."
For example, instead of doing the search: (educator or educators or educational)

type, educat* and the research database will retrieve any article with a word starting with the letters educat.

Such as:

educate

education

educator

educators

educational

and so on.

 

As you can see in the example above the root word does not have to be a complete word.
Use truncation to expands your search.
Truncation is a useful tool, but do not use it if you are looking for specific words or if the "root word" is common (e.g. car*). Imagine all the words that start with the letters car. Your search would be too large and not on target. A better search would be automobile#. This search would only find articles with automobile or automobiles.

PRACTICE

1. Still using EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier

2. Go to Basic Search

3. Search commuting AND student, then search commuting AND student*

Notice you retrieved more by truncating student. You could also truncate commuting (e.g. commut*).

NOTE: Each database uses a different wildcard character (read each database's help section).

For example, here are two different systems' ways of doing this search:

The Library Catalog, EBSCOhost and ProQuest databases use an asterisk - educat*
Lexis-Nexis databases use an exclamation mark - educat!