Document reuse: Organizing, finding and reorganizing content

摘要

Existing structures should be exploited as best as possible in the course of document reuse. Reuse may take multiple forms: rearranging a single document so as to provide different views of the same information, copying a portion of a single document so as to provide a portion of a new document, and combining portions of existing documents to constitute a new document. We present algorithms for doing this reuse, describe some computer tools which we have built to support this reuse, and provide real examples. For significant reuse, the information in existing documents needs to be abstracted so as to highlight the conceptual patterns. Outlines are a structure which could, at least, partially support this function.