Search is more than textual matching

1. To be or not to be that is the question
2. This was the best of times the worst of times
3. Ask not what your country asks of you but what you can do for your country
4. For a long time I used to go to bed early
5. Shakespeare and Dickens are both famous British authors
6. By George, I should’ve known that! I’ll be a dickens!
7. An accomplished woman almost always knows more than we men, though her knowledge is of a different sort

• A search for “ask” returns one result: sentence 3.
• A search for “time” returns two result: sentences 2 and 4.
• A search for “be” returns four results: sentence 1 and 6 “be”, sentence 2 “best”, and sentence 4 “bed”.

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Where textual matching doesn’t work

• “qestion” (“question” mistyped). No sentences are returned.
• “be”. What sentence should come first? The ones that match exactly (the word “be”)? Or some other criteria?
• “literary quotes”? Textual matching doesn’t know anything about these sentences - are these political or literary quotes? The quotes need to be classified, tagged as coming from novels, politicians, authors, countries.

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Going beyond textual matching

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Add structure

1. “To be or not to be, that is the question”, shakespeare, british, hamlet, theater
2. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”, dickens, british, tale of two cities, novel
3. “Ask not what your country asks of you but what you can do for your country”, kennedy, american, speech, politics
4. “For a long time I used to go to bed early”, proust, french, recherche, novel
5. “Shakespeare and Dickens are both famous British authors”, georgette, british, history of british literature, essay
6. “By George, I should’ve known that! I’ll be a dickens!”, landly, british, my fair lady, theater
7. “An accomplished woman almost always knows more than we men, though her knowledge is of a different sort.”, george elliot, british, middlemarch, novel

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Going further