KWIC

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

KWIC is an acronym for Key Word In Context, the most common format for concordance lines.

A KWIC index is formed by sorting and aligning the words within an article title to allow each word (except the stop words) in titles to be searchable alphabetically in the index. It was a useful indexing method for technical manuals before computerized full text search became common.

For example, the title statement of this article and the Wikipedia slogan would appear as follows in a KWIC index. A KWIC index usually uses a wide layout to allow the display of maximum 'in context' information (not shown in the following example).

KWIC is an	acronym for Key Word In Context, ...	page 1
... Key Word In Context, the most	common format for concordance lines.	page 1
... the most common format for	concordance lines.	page 1
... is an acronym for Key Word In	Context, the most common format ...	page 1
Wikipedia, The Free	Encyclopedia	page 0
... In Context, the most common	format for concordance lines.	page 1
Wikipedia, The	Free Encyclopedia	page 0
KWIC is an acronym for	Key Word In Context, the most ...	page 1
	KWIC is an acronym for Keyword ...	page 1
... common format for concordance	lines.	page 1
... for Key Word In Context, the	most common format for concordance ...	page 1
	Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia	page 0

The term permuted index is another name for a KWIC index, referring to the fact that it indexes all cyclic permutations of the headings. Books composed of of many short sections with their own descriptive headings, most notably collections of manual pages, often ended with a permuted index section, allowing the reader to easily find a section by any word from its heading. This practice is no longer common today.

[edit] References in Literature

D. L. Parnas uses a KWIC Index as an example on how to perform modular design in his paper "On the Criteria To Be Used in Decomposing Systems into Modules" - Available as ACM Classic Paper