Patent ID: 7188117

Claim:
A method for re-ranking a set of relevant documents identified following a search, the method comprising: determining a set of document content feature values for each relevant document identified; generating a textual authoritativeness value and determining a textual authority class for each relevant document using a trained document textual authority model based on the determined set of document content feature values, the trained document textual authority model reclassifying the documents by assigning the document content feature values to a textual authority rank; rearranging the set of relevant documents in an order selected based on the textual authority rank by using the generated textual authoritativeness value and the determined textual authority class for the documents to rearrange the set of relevant; and displaying the rearranged set of relevant documents; wherein the textual authoritativeness value is generated for each document using a document textual authority framework model that considers at least one of an author's background, a targeted audience, an author's institutional affiliation, or whether the document has been reviewed by others.