Authority Finder Allows Students To Get Relevant Sources Within Seconds
BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE via COLLEGIATE PRESSWIRE)--Dec 12, 2001--The Internet has revolutionized research, allowing easier and greater access to information. College students, journalists, and academics are overwhelmed with research results and many times find themselves with materials they can`t use and find it difficult to obtain what they really need. To solve this problem, Knowledge Ventures, Inc. an educational tools software company focused on developing solutions to improve the on-line research experience has created Authority Finder, a concept based search engine (http://www.authorityfinder.com) that gives students, journalists or anyone looking for sources to support their work the tools and resources that they need to explore their own ideas and grow them with relevant materials and articles.
What Is Authority Finder?
Authority Finder is a simple and intuitive querying tool that allows the user to locate relevant quotations and corresponding citations from a list of authoritative academic journals, in support of key ideas or thesis statements. Whether writing a term paper, speech, article or business plan, the user can search relevant quotes or whole articles to back-up their hypothesis or argument.
``Most search engines have as a backdrop the Dewey Decimal System or library approach that only allows students to search using a few words, titles or names,`` said Dr. Michael Lissack, founder and Chairman of Knowledge Ventures. ``Authority Finder helps address the critical need of students, writers and researchers everywhere: `I need a quote that says X in order to support my position,` by searching for relevant sentences rather than a key word.``
What Makes Authority Finder Different?
Authority Finder uses a search engine which allows users to conduct searches based on natural language using anything from a keyword to a few sentences of text to yield relevant results. Better than a keyword or Boolean search, Authority Finder`s underlying search engine can automatically extract an ``understanding`` of a given query. Authority Finder uses language pattern-matching algorithms that convert queries into a set of statistical patterns or ``concept chunks`` which are then used to find similar ``chunks`` of content within the Authority Finder database(s). The results are targeted lists of quotations and sources within seconds.
Authority Finder can search against multiple textual databases simultaneously making it a point and click process for the user. Once the list of potential quotes is retrieved, the results are ranked within seconds and presented in a list with each quote accompanied by the author and title information of the particular quote`s origin. Each quote can be clicked to view the entire article from which the quote was excerpted, with the quote highlighted for one to easily review its original context.
The Authority Finder database currently boasts more than 35,000 articles from 250 American and English academic and business journals, covering a wide range of subjects including: business, medicine, art history, history, economics, science, technology, education, sociology and psychology from 1998 to the present. The database is updated regularly to include the most recent and relevant content from the data feed of journals. Material is provided under an agreement with the Gale Group.
Users can conduct preliminary searches for free at http://www.authorityfinder.com or sign-up for a subscription to gain complete access to their found materials. Currently, users can sign up for a 15 day trial for $9.95 and then opt for two month subscription for $24.95 or six month subscription for $49.95.
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