Imagining the Evidence

http://ow.ly/7H0ZU

An article by Craig Ball, Esq. appearing on his blog Ball in Your Court.

This article discusses the use of keywords, and why they often are not as effective as a more advanced approaches can prove to be (when such techniques are properly applied.)

The article states, "Today, it’s commonplace for an opponent to contribute to the list of terms used to search for responsive documents. Unfortunately, experience and study bear out that keyword search is a relatively ineffective means to identify responsive documents, especially when search terms are selected without careful analysis of the collection or testing for precision.

Keyword search is a frustratingly literal technology. If responsive documents contain terms even slightly different from those searched, the responsive documents will likely be missed. Use of stemming, alternate spellings and synonyms helps, but keywords are, at best, a crude tool when you know the collection well and a crap shoot when you don’t."

Mr. Ball believes the future will include discussion of "imagining" the evidence, which will be used in part to help set the parameters used during a predictive coding, or technology enhanced search process.