Editing Document retrieval (section)

'''Document retrieval''' is defined as the matching of some stated user query against a set of [[free-text]] records. These records could be any type of mainly [[natural language|unstructured text]], such as [[newspaper article]]s, real estate records or paragraphs in a manual. User queries can range from multi-sentence full descriptions of an information need to a few words.

Document retrieval is sometimes referred to as, or as a branch of, '''text retrieval'''. Text retrieval is a branch of [[information retrieval]] where the information is stored primarily in the form of [[natural language|text]]. Text databases became decentralized thanks to the [[personal computer]]. Text retrieval is a critical area of study today, since it is the fundamental basis of all [[internet]] [[search engine]]s.