Improving retrieval performance by relevance feedback

Relevance feedback is an automatic process, introduced over 20 years ago, designed to produce improved query formulations following an initial retrieval operation. The principal relevance feedback methods described over the years are examined briefly, and evaluation data are included to demonstrate the effectiveness of the various methods. Prescriptions are given for conducting text retrieval operations iteratively using relevance feedback. © 1990 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.