Multi-document summarization

Multi-document summarization is an automatic procedure aimed at extraction of information from multiple texts written about the same topic. The resulting summary report allows individual users, such as professional information consumers, to quickly familiarize themselves with information contained in a large cluster of documents. In such a way, multi-document summarization systems are complementing the news aggregators performing the next step down the road of coping with information overload. Multi-document summarization is an automatic procedure aimed at extraction of information from multiple texts written about the same topic. The resulting summary report allows individual users, such as professional information consumers, to quickly familiarize themselves with information contained in a large cluster of documents. In such a way, multi-document summarization systems are complementing the news aggregators performing the next step down the road of coping with information overload. Multi-document summarization creates information reports that are both concise and comprehensive.With different opinions being put together & outlined, every topic is described from multiple perspectives within a single document.While the goal of a brief summary is to simplify information search and cut the time by pointing to the most relevant source documents, comprehensive multi-document summary should itself contain the required information, hence limiting the need for accessing original files to cases when refinement is required.Automatic summaries present information extracted from multiple sources algorithmically, without any editorial touch or subjective human intervention, thus making it completely unbiased. The multi-document summarization task is more complex than summarizing a single document, even a long one. The difficulty arises from thematic diversity within a large set of documents. A good summarization technology aims to combine the main themes with completeness, readability, and concision. The Document Understanding Conferences, conducted annually by NIST, have developed sophisticated evaluation criteria for techniques accepting the multi-document summarization challenge.