Natural Language Processing for Online Applications: Text retrieval, extraction and categorization(5 (1st) Natural Language Processing)

This text covers the emerging technologies of document retrieval, information extraction, and text categorization in a way which highlights commonalities in terms of both general principles and practical issues. It seeks to satisfy a need on the part of technology practitioners in the Internet space, faced with having to make difficult decisions as to what research has been done an what the best practices are. It is not intended as a vendor guide (such things are quickly out of date), or as a recipe for building applications (such recipes are very context-dependent). But it does identify the key technologies, the issues involved, and the strengths and weaknesses on evaluation in every chapter, both in terms of methodology (how to evaluate) and what controlled experimentation and industrial experience have to tell us.

Review :
In general, the book is a very good, concise reference book filled with many theoretical principles and practical guidelines. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to build applications related to text retrieval, information extraction and categorization. The authors had the good idea of not making this book a vendor guide but rather an overview of methodologies and technologies available and the evaluation criteria for the techniques described. I do not believe their goal was to publish a detailed overview but an introduction to the various technologies available. In that regard, the book is very successful and I much appreciate it because key concepts are clearly outlined which it makes it easier to follow the authors through the more complex parts of the book. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in NLP and its applications to the new challenges brought out by the arrival of the information age. In my view, the book is very practical: certainly, since it is pretty comprehensible and does not go into too profound details, it could serve well as a textbook for an introductory course. However, the book is not intended exclusively as an academic text. It is also aimed at software engineers, project managers, and technology executives who want or need to understand the technology at some level. I think that such people may find it useful, and that it may provoke ideas, discussions, and action the field of applied research and development. Some special features of the book include solid coverage of evaluation techniques in every chapter, excellent endnotes, and references to exactly the right stuff. However, the most salient feature of this book is the clear and cogent writing. It reads much like a series of well-written review articles an is actually enjoyable to read while not skimping at all on technical detail.