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Truncation, Wildcards, and Word Stemming

Truncation

Truncation allows you to search for a term and its variations by entering a minimum of the first three letters of the term followed by an asterisk *.

Note:Truncation is currently set to read a limit of 1024 word stems and will result in an error message if the user enters a truncation query that is too general.

If you enter:	You retrieve:
regulat*	records containing regulation, regulations, regulating, and regulatory
telecomm*	records containing telecommunications, telecommuting, and telecommuters

Wildcards

Wildcards are used to represent from zero to nine additional characters in a search term. They are useful when you are unsure of spelling, when there are alternate spellings, or when you only know part of a term.

A question mark ? represents a single character.
An asterisk * represents from zero to nine additional characters.

Note: Wildcards can only be used after the second character of a term.

If you enter:	You retrieve:
te?t	records containing test and text
*recle**	records containing reconfigurable, recycle, and receptacle

Word Stemming

Note: Word Stemming of search terms is not automatic. You must use the truncation symbol.

Related topics:

TRIS is a bibliographic database funded by sponsors of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), primarily the state departments of transportation and selected federal transportation agencies. TRIS Online is hosted by the National Transportation Library under a cooperative agreement between the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and TRB.