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Key Word in Context

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Key Word In Context (KWIC)
– KWIC is the most common format for concordance lines.
– The term KWIC was coined by Hans Peter Luhn.
– KWIC index is formed by sorting and aligning words within an article title.
– It was a useful indexing method for technical manuals before computerized full text search became common.
– A KWIC index allows each word in titles to be searchable alphabetically.

Keyword alongside context (KWAC)
– KWAC is a method of indexing that includes the keyword and its context.
– KWAC is used to provide additional information about the keyword.
– It helps in understanding the meaning and usage of the keyword in the given context.
– KWAC is commonly used in linguistic and natural language processing research.
– It enhances the accuracy and relevance of search results.

Keyword out of context (KWOC)
– KWOC is a method of indexing that lists the keyword separately from its context.
– KWOC was commonly used in permuted index sections of books.
– It allowed readers to easily find a section by any word from its heading.
– KWOC is no longer common in modern indexing practices.
– KWOC is also known as Key Word Out of Context.

References in literature
– David L. Parnas uses a KWIC Index as an example in his paper on modular design.
– Christopher D. Manning and Hinrich Schütze describe a KWIC index and computer concordancing in their book on statistical natural language processing.
– H.P. Luhn’s article from 1960, ‘Key word-in-context index for technical literature,’ is cited as a reference.
– Rev. Gerard OConnors discusses the use of KWIC and KWICn formats in recent concordances.
– The Concordance of the Roman Missal is produced in both KWIC and KWICn formats.

Related concepts
– PTX is a Unix command-line utility that produces a permuted index.
– Concordancer is a tool used to analyze and study linguistic data.
– Concordance is a publishing term related to creating an alphabetical list of words in a text.
– Burrows-Wheeler transform is a data compression algorithm used in text indexing.
– Hans Peter Luhn is the researcher who coined the term KWIC.

Key Word In Context (KWIC) is the most common format for concordance lines. The term KWIC was first coined by Hans Peter Luhn. The system was based on a concept called keyword in titles which was first proposed for Manchester libraries in 1864 by Andrea Crestadoro.

A KWIC index is formed by sorting and aligning the words within an article title to allow each word (except the stop words) in titles to be searchable alphabetically in the index. It was a useful indexing method for technical manuals before computerized full text search became common.

For example, a search query including all of the words in an example definition ("KWIC is an acronym for Key Word In Context, the most common format for concordance lines") and the Wikipedia slogan in English ("the free encyclopedia"), searched against a Wikipedia page, might yield a KWIC index as follows. A KWIC index usually uses a wide layout to allow the display of maximum 'in context' information (not shown in the following example).

KWIC is an acronym for Key Word In Context, ... page 1
... Key Word In Context, the most common format for concordance lines. page 1
... the most common format for concordance lines. page 1
... is an acronym for Key Word In Context, the most common format ... page 1
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia page 0
... In Context, the most common format for concordance lines. page 1
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia page 0
KWIC is an acronym for Key Word In Context, the most ... page 1
  KWIC is an acronym for Key Word ... page 1
... common format for concordance lines. page 1
... for Key Word In Context, the most common format for concordance ... page 1
  Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia page 0
KWIC is an acronym for Key Word In Context, the most common ... page 1

A KWIC index is a special case of a permuted index. This term refers to the fact that it indexes all cyclic permutations of the headings. Books composed of many short sections with their own descriptive headings, most notably collections of manual pages, often ended with a permuted index section, allowing the reader to easily find a section by any word from its heading. This practice, also known as Key Word Out of Context (KWOC), is no longer common.

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