Truncation symbols replace the ending letter or letters of a word. This allows you to retrieve all variations of a root word.

Example: colon* will retrieve records with the following terms:

colony	colon|y
colonies	colon|ies
colonist	colon|ist
colonists	colon|ists
colonial	colon|ial

Truncation will find all forms of a word. This means that it will also retrieve words that are irrelevant if they have the same root as the relevant words. Colon* will also retrieve

colon	colon|
colonoscopy	colon|oscopy

Therefore truncation must be used judiciously.

Different search software systems use different symbols for truncation. Some of the most common are *, !, and ?. Always check the help screens to find out which truncation symbol is supported.

Truncation is a powerful search and retrieval strategy.