Keyword

Keyword Indexing in Legal Information Retrieval

The following is a basic concept of Keyword Indexing in relation to information retrieval. In addition to this, Keyword Indexing may be applied to legal texts, including case law, legislation and scholarly works. Keyword indexing is based on words (keywords) in natural language text. It is commonly the basis for electronic searching of non-displayed indexes or full texts, but it is also the basis for some popular natural language syntax for displayed indexes. KWIC (KeyWord In Context) syntax creates a heading for every keyword in a text segment (title or other statement), with the rest of the text segment used for context preceding and following the keyword in the original word order. In KWIC, the keyword (and sorting word) is in the middle of the heading. KWOC (KeyWord Out of Context) pulls the key word out of its context to place it in its traditional place at the left of the heading. KWAC (KeyWord Alongside Context) attempts to restore some context by keeping the original word order, but placing words that appear preceding the key word at the end of the heading.

Keyword searching in Law Libraries

The follow definition of Keyword searching is of use in law library research: Keyword searching allows a user to construct a search by looking for a word or phrase which may be contained in any of several fields (e.g. author, title, or subject fields.)