KCSL

Synonyms – Thesauri

Myth

A search query word may only appear in relevant documents as its synonym, and thus, it is thought that unless the synonym is added to the query, the relevant documents will not be found. Also, the same word can mean different things in different contexts, so synonyms are also thought to improve search results that are affected by this problem.

Fact

It is only helpful to expand search queries with synonyms if a query consists of just a word or two, and thus the context of the word(s) is completely unclear. However, when queries can be entered as Natural Language questions, any word that may have required a synonym on its own, will now have additional words that help to express its meaning in the particular context. Therefore, while a word itself may not appear in the relevant documents, it is very likely that several of the other words present in the question will appear in the relevant documents, and thus these documents will be found.

In addition, UniFind™ Technology identifies proper derivatives and base forms of query words, and thus, does not require that words be in any particular form, such as singular, plural, or conjugated, in order to be found.

UniFind is able to make the use of predefined, external synonyms and thesauri almost completely obsolete, especially when queries are expressed as Natural Language questions; though when necessary, a few important synonyms can be easily placed in UniFind.

When people using UniFind see top quality results appear in response to their Natural Language questions, they begin to enter richer Natural Language questions more often, as opposed to one and two word queries.

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