Database of Key-words

 

(default file extension .KDB)

 

The point of it…

The point of this database is that it will allow you to study the key-words which recur often over a number of files.

For example, if you have 500 business reports, each one will have its own key words. These will probably be of two main kinds. There will be key-words which are key in one text but are not generally key (names of the firms and words relating to what they individually produce); and other, more general words (like consultant, profit, employee) which are typical of business documentation generally. Or you may find that I, you, should etc. come to the top if your text files are ones which are much more interactive than the reference corpus texts.

 

By making up a database, you can sort these out. The ones at the top of the list, when you view them, may be those which are most typical of the genre in some way. We might call the ones at the top "key-key words" and the list is at first ordered in terms of "key key-ness", but those at the bottom will only be key in a few text files. You can of course toggle it into alphabetical order and back again.

 

You can set a minimum number of files that each word must have been found to be key in, using KeyWords Settings | Database.

 

When viewing a database you will be able to investigate the associates of the key key-words.

Under Statistics, you will also be able to see details of the key words files which comprise the database (file name and number of key words per file), together with overall statistics on the number of different types and the tokens (the total of all the key-words in the whole database including repeats).

 

See also : Creating a database, Definition of key key-word

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