Method and apparatus for summarizing one or more text messages using indicative summaries

摘要

A method and apparatus are provided for summarizing a text message, such as an email message or a transcribed audio message. A portion of each text message, such as a sentence, is extracted as an indicative summary of the text message based on a degree of overlap of words in the sentence with a set of words, such as words in the message subject or words in a related root message. The extracted portion is based on a score for each portion of the text message, such as a sentence. An interface is also provided for presenting the indicative summaries of a set of related text messages to a user.

主权项

1. A method comprising:
receiving, at a server, a message comprising a subject, a first sentence and a second sentence; processing the message to yield a processed subject based on the subject, a processed first sentence based on the first sentence, and a processed second sentence based on the second sentence, wherein processing the message comprises identifying words in the message that are of a predefined word type; and selecting exactly one of the first sentence or the second sentence as a summary text, which summarizes the message, based on:
(i) a first number of words of the predefined word type in the processed first sentence;(ii) a second number of words of the predefined word type in the processed second sentence;(iii) first overlapping words, of the predefined word type, occurring both in the processed subject and the processed first sentence; and(iv) second overlapping words, of the predefined word type, occurring both in the processed subject and the processed second sentence.