TECHNIQUES FOR GRAMMAR RULE COMPOSITION AND TESTING

• US 20110185284A1
• Filed: 01/26/2010
• Published: 07/28/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/26/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: University of Phoenix Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Apollo Education Group, Inc.
• Inventors: Allen, Andrew T., Bomer, Michelle N., Myers, Ken R., Yackshaw, Catherine, Chan, John M.
• Granted Patent: US 9,298,697 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/751
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/253 Grammatical analysis; Style critique

Abstract

Techniques are provided for composing and testing grammar rules that are configured to provide feedback on violations of target grammar guidelines in the text of documents. Tests may be performed to determine whether a new grammar rule produces false positives, is redundant or conflicts with other rules, or is expensive to apply to a document. A user may test the rule, in isolation or with other rules, on a batch of documents. A display of a summary of feedback that is generated in the batch of documents by the rules is provided. The user may also apply a rule to documents submitted for feedback as a hidden rule. Any violations of a hidden rule are recorded, but feedback on the violations is not provided in submitted documents. Furthermore, a user may indicate a level for a rule, which may control the set of documents to which the rule is applied.

Claims

1. A computer-executed method comprising:

displaying a user interface with a control for receiving grammar rule definitions;

receiving, through the control, first input that defines a particular grammar rule;

receiving second input that identifies a batch of at least two documents;

detecting violations of the particular grammar rule within text contained in the batch of documents;

generating a display that communicates information relating to the violations of the particular grammar rule;

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

2. The computer-executed method of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying a user interface with a second control for requesting detection of violations of the particular grammar rule within text contained in the batch of documents;

receiving, through the second control, a request to detect violations of the particular grammar rule within text contained in the batch of documents; and

only in response to the request, detecting violations of the particular grammar rule within text contained in the batch of documents.

3. The computer-executed method of claim 1, wherein the step of detecting violations of the particular grammar rule comprises detecting violations of only the particular grammar rule.

4. The computer-executed method of claim 1, wherein:

the method further comprises the step of receiving input that identifies one or more additional grammar rules; and

the step of detecting violations includes detecting violations of a plurality of grammar rules that include the particular grammar rule and one or more additional grammar rules and detecting violations of each of the one or more additional grammar rules; and

the display includes information relating to the violations of the particular grammar rule and the violations of each of the one or more additional grammar rules.

5. The computer-executed method of claim 4, wherein the step of receiving input that identifies one or more additional grammar rules includes the steps of:

generating a display that lists a first set of grammar rules;

receiving user input that selects a second set of grammar rules;

wherein said second set of grammar rules is a subset of said first set of grammar rules; and

wherein the one or more additional grammar rules are the grammar rules that belong to said second set of grammar rules.

6. The computer-executed method of claim 4, wherein the method further comprises:

identifying a subset of the plurality of grammar rules as high-correlation grammar rules based on the locations of violations of the subset of grammar rules within the batch of documents; and

generating a display that identifies the high-correlation grammar rules.

7. The computer-executed method of claim 1, further comprising:

presenting said violations of the particular grammar rule to a panel of users;

receiving, from each user of the panel of users, data that specifies whether a violation of said violations represents a false positive;

aggregating the data received from the panel of users to produce aggregated feedback; and

generating a display that communicates the aggregated feedback.

8. The computer-executed method of claim 1, wherein the information relating to the violations of the particular grammar rule includes at least one of:

(a) total run time for detecting violations of the particular grammar rule;

(b) a sequences of character from the text contained in the batch of documents that violates the particular grammar rule;

(c) a comment associated with a violation of the particular grammar rule;

(d) one or more characters in the text contained in the batch of documents that occur proximate to a sequence of characters that violates the particular grammar rule; and

(e) an attribute of the particular grammar rule.

9. The computer-executed method of claim 1, wherein the second input that identifies the batch of documents identifies at least one of:

(a) an attribute of all of the documents of the batch of documents;

(b) a number of documents for the batch of documents;

(c) a path expression that identifies a location of the batch of documents;

10. One or more storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more computing devices, cause performance of the method recited in claim 1.

11. A computer-executed method comprising:

in a single grammar-checking operation, requested by a first party, detecting violations of a first grammar rule and a second grammar rule within text contained in a particular document, wherein the first grammar rule is not a hidden rule and wherein the second grammar rule is a hidden rule;

in response to detecting violations of the first grammar rule during the grammar-checking operation;

communicating information relating to one or more of the violations of the first grammar rule to the first party, and

generating data indicative of the violations of the first grammar rule;

in response to detecting violations of the second grammar rule during the grammar-checking operation;

generating data indicative of the violations of the second grammar rule without communicating information relating to violations of the second grammar rule to the first party; and

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

12. The computer-executed method of claim 11, wherein the step of communicating information relating to one or more of the violations of the first grammar rule to the first party includes:

modifying the particular document by inserting, within the text of the particular document, information related to the violations of the first grammar rule; and

making the modified particular document available to the first party.

13. The computer-executed method of claim 11, further comprising:

receiving a request, by a second party that manages the second grammar rule, for information indicative of the violations of the second grammar rule; and

in response to the request, communicating information indicative of the violations of the second grammar rule to the second party;

wherein the first party is distinct from the second party.

14. The computer-executed method of claim 11, further comprising:

gathering a summary of information relating to violations of the first grammar rule in the text of documents that are written by authors that pertain to a particular group; and

generating a display that communicates the summary of information for access by a leader of the particular group.

15. One or more storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more computing devices, cause performance of the method recited in claim 11.

16. A computer-executed method comprising:

receiving information for a first grammar rule that includes a first level for the first grammar rule;

receiving information for a second grammar rule that includes a second level for the second grammar rule;

wherein the second level is different than the first level;

receiving a request to detect violations of grammar rules in a first document that corresponds to the first level;

in response to the request to detect violations of grammar rules in the first document;

detecting violations of the first grammar rule within text contained in the first document; and

not detecting violations of the second grammar rule within text contained in the first document; and

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

17. The computer-executed method of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving a request to detect violations of grammar rules in a second document that corresponds to the second level;

in response to the request to detect violations of grammar rules in the second document;

detecting violations of the first grammar rule within text contained in the second document; and

detecting violations of the second grammar rule within text contained in the second document.

18. One or more storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more computing devices, cause performance of the method recited in claim 16.