Query Formulation Process
MLISc II nd Year,
Department of Library and Information Science,
Central university of Pondicherry.
Query Formulation Process
Definition of Query:
Query is defined as any question, especially one
expressing doubt or requesting information or to
check its validity or accuracy of information.
Query formulation and Information and
“Information retrieval embraces the intellectual
aspects of the description of information and its
specification for search, and also whatever systems,
techniques, or machines are employed to carry out
Information Retrieval (IR) is finding material (usually
documents) of an unstructured nature (usually text)
that satisfies an information need from within large
collections (usually stored on computers).
Information Retrieval is a research-driven theoretical
and experimental discipline. The focus is on different
aspects of the information–seeking process,
depending on the researcher’s background or
The Standard Retrieval Interaction Model
Query is one of the components in the IR cycle. The information search process has
the following steps such as Enrich query formulation, Expand result management,
Enable long-term effort, Enhance collaboration.
Information Searching Strategies
Select-Break complex query into topics and deal with each topic separately
Exhaust-Include most elements of the query in the initial query formulation
Building blocks - Combination of discrete topics
Pearl growing - Small relevant set expanded gradually
Successive fractions - Large relevant set refined gradually
Most standard information retrieval models use a
single source of information (e.g., the retrieval
corpus) for query formulation tasks such as term
and phrase weighting and query expansion
Query formulation – a process during which the
original keyword query issued by the user is
transformed into a structured query
representation that is consumed by the search
Query Formulation Processing:
The process of query formulation (also referred to
as query rewriting or query transformation)
modifies the original keyword query submitted by
the user to the search engine in order to better
represent the underlying intent of the query.
The formulated query is then used as an input to
the search engine’s ranking algorithm.
Thus, the primary goal of query formulation is to
improve the overall quality of the ranking
presented to the user in response to their query.
Query formulation is usually divided into two
main processing stages.
•The first processing stage, which is usually
referred to as query refinement, alters the
query on the morphological level (e.g.,
tokenization, spelling corrections,stemming,
Query term processing:
•Cut character sequence into word tokens
–Deal with “John’s”, a state-of-the-art solution
Map text and query term to same form
–You want U.S.A. and USA to match
•We may wish different forms of a root to match
•We may omit very common words (or not)
–the, a, to, of
•After the query refinement stage is completed,
the second processing stage alters the query on
the structural level.
Such structural alterations may include, among
other actions, segmenting the query into atomic
concepts (i.e., combinations of terms), assigning
weights to these concepts, or expanding the
query with related weighted concepts.
Known relevant documents contain terms that can be
used to describe a larger cluster of relevant documents.
Query expansion based on Thesauri, Lexical/statistic
analysis of text / context and concept formation and
1.Global strategy: all documents in the collection used
to determine a global thesaurus-like structure which
defines term relationships. This is shown to the user
who selects terms for query expansion.
2.Local strategy: local set for a query are examined at
query time to determine terms for query expansion.
Encourage users dissatisfied with the top search results to
User types a search query. Result is search results plus
possible new search queries, which when clicked on issue
a new query whose results to replace the current results
seen by the user.
A mechanism that recommends query modifications to
reduce false positives
Incremental process of transforming a query into a new
query that more accurately reflects the user’s information
Different forms of queries:
Query-By-Form is the simplest querying method,
but it is neither flexible nor expressive.
Query-By-Example A known approach in databases,
where users formulate queries as filling
As many databases are modeled at the conceptual
level using EER, ORM or UML diagrams, one can
query these databases starting from their diagrams.
Users can select part of a given diagram, and their
selection is translated into SQL, ConQuer & Mquery
Natural Language Queries allow people to write
their queries as natural language sentences, and
then translate these sentences into a formal
language (e.g., SQL , XQuery ).
Several Semantic Web approaches (Isparql,
RDFAuthor, GRQL, Nitelight) propose to formulate a
SPARQL query by visualizing its triple patterns as
ellipses connected with arrows, so that one would
need less technical skills to formulate a query.
Asking and answering method.
Enrich query formulation
Query formulation enriched by the following
Previous & Similar, Structured input, Spell check,
Query previews, Finding Aids, Limit:(Time,
Geography, Language, Sources, Media etc )
Supporting query formulation:
Spelling correction of the query, Suggestions with
definitions to the query, Searching for
disambiguated concepts, Implicit information
about users used for search, Geo location and user
Querying is an iterative process
Expand the original query with new terms.
Re-weight the terms in the expanded query.
Direct feedback from user – filtering.
Information derived from the set of documents initially retrieved
Global information derived from the whole document collection.
Shields the user from the details of the query formulation process,
and permits the construction of useful search statements without
intimate knowledge of collection make-up and search
Breaks down the search operation into a sequence of small search
steps, designed to approach the wanted subject area gradually.
Provides a controlled query alteration process designed to
emphasize some terms (relevant ones) and to de-emphasize others
Levels of search activities according to Bates 1990
Move: Low-level search function
(e.g. type in search term, view retrieved document)
Tactic: several moves to further a search
(e.g. broaden/narrow a query)
Stratagem: set of actions on a single domain
(citation database, tables of contents of journals)
Strategy: complete plan for satisfying an
(e.g. subject search, browse relevant journals, find
Examples for query formulation process:
The Boolean retrieval model is being able to ask a query that is a
Boolean Queries are queries using AND, OR and NOT to join query
terms. Many search systems you still use are Boolean:
•Email, library catalog, Mac OS X Spotlight
Largest commercial (paying subscribers) legal search service
(started 1975; ranking added 1992; new federated search added
We want to be able to answer queries such as “stanford university” –
as a phrase.
Thus the sentence “I went to university at Stanford” is not a match.
The concept of phrase queries has proven easily understood by users;
one of the few “advanced search” ideas that works
Advantages of query formulation process:
Query easy to specify
The output is ranked based on the estimated relevance of
the documents to the query
A wide variety of theoretical models exist
Very precise queries can be specified
Very easy to implement (in the simple form)
Disadvantages of query formulation process:
Specifying the query may be difficult for casual users
Lack of control over the size of the retrieved set
Query less precise (although weighting can be used)
Large relevant set refined gradually
Matching between the document and the query in
the abstracted space of the set of index words is
Relational Databases and Query language
exemplify data retrieval due to semantic clarity
Document querying can be transitioned to data
retrieval if only we could re-author all the docs so
as to provide formalnsemantics to them and
implement sufficiently powerful query language.