Automatic Abstracting of Magazine Articles: The Creation of "Highlight" Abstracts


Marie-Francine Moens
Interdisciplinary Centre for Law and IT (ICRI), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, B-3000 Belgium

Jos Dumortier
Interdisciplinary Centre for Law and IT (ICRI), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, B-3000 Belgium


Abstract

Our research contributes to the design and development of text grammars in a text-abstracting task. We developed a system that parses texts based upon the text grammar of a specific text type and that extracts sentences and statements that are relevant to include in the abstracts. The system is applied to create "highlight" abstracts of magazine articles. It employs the knowledge of discourse patterns that are typical for news stories. Browsing a database of article abstracts is one way to select and buy relevant magazine articles on-line.


SIGIR'98
24-28 August 1998
Melbourne, Australia.
sigir98@cs.mu.oz.au.