Query generation system for an information retrieval system

1. A query generation system comprising:

an element rank and inference engine in communication with a computing system and a user interface, the element rank and inference engine operable to:

receive a plurality of terms from the user interface;

derive, using latent semantic analysis one or more inferred terms from the plurality of received terms, the one or more inferred terms comprising terms not in the plurality of received terms;

filter one or more of the plurality of received terms according to a specified criteria;

display the filtered terms and the one or more inferred terms on the user interface, the filtered terms and the one or more inferred terms having a visual characteristic that varies according to the specified criteria;

receive an additional term from the user interface;

generate a query in accordance with the filtered terms, the one or more inferred terms, and the additional term; and

transmit the query to a web search engine.

2. A query generation system comprising:

an element rank and inference engine in communication with a computing system and a user interface, the element rank and inference engine operable to:

receive a plurality of terms from the user interface;

derive, using latent semantic analysis, one or more inferred terms from the plurality of received terms, the one or more inferred terms comprising terms not in the plurality of received terms;

modify the plurality of terms according to a specified criteria;

display the modified plurality of terms and the one or more inferred terms on the user interface, the plurality of terms and the one or more inferred terms having a visual characteristic that varies according to their specified criteria;

generate a query in accordance with the modified plurality of terms and the one or more inferred terms; and

transmit the query to a web search engine.

3. The query generation system of claim 2 , wherein modifying the plurality of terms further comprises ranking the plurality of terms according to a level of importance.

4. The query generation system of claim 2 , wherein modifying the plurality of terms further comprises filtering one or more of the plurality of terms and displaying the remaining plurality of terms according to the specified criteria.

5. The query generation system of claim 2 , wherein the query generation system is further operable to receive, following display of the modified plurality of terms on the user interface, an additional term from the user interface.

6. The query generation system of claim 2 , wherein the query generation system is further operable to remove, following display of the modified plurality of terms on the user interface, one or more of the plurality of terms from the user interface according to a request from the user interface.

7. The query generation system of claim 6 , wherein the query generation system is further operable to separately store the removed one or more terms in a memory.

8. The query generation system of claim 2 , wherein the query generation system is further operable to store the generated query in a memory for use at a later time.

9. The query generation system of claim 2 , wherein the visual characteristic is selected from the group consisting of a spatial order, a color, a size, a shape, an order, a relative proximity, a relative boldness, and a relative texture.

10. A method comprising:

receiving a plurality of terms from a user interface;

deriving, using latent semantic analysis, one or more inferred terms from the plurality of received terms, the one or more inferred terms comprising terms not inn the plurality of received terms;

modifying the plurality of terms according to a specified criteria;

displaying the modified plurality of terms and the one or more inferred terms on the user interface, the plurality of terms and the one or more inferred terms having a visual characteristic that varies according to their specified criteria;

generating a query in accordance with the modified plurality of terms and the one or more inferred terms; and

transmitting the query to a web search engine.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein modifying the plurality of terms according to a specified criteria further comprises ranking the plurality of terms according to a level of importance.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein modifying the plurality of terms according to a specified criteria further comprises filtering one or more of the plurality of terms and displaying the remaining plurality of terms according to the specified criteria.

13. The method of claim 10 , further comprising, following display of the modified plurality of terms on the user interface, receiving an additional term from the user interface.

14. The method of claim 10 , further comprising, following display of the modified plurality of terms on the user interface, removing one or more of the plurality of terms from the user interface according to a request from the user interface.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising separately store the removed one or more terms in a memory.

16. The method of claim 10 , further comprising storing the generated query in a memory for use at a later time.

17. The method of claim 10 , wherein the visual characteristic is selected from the group consisting of a spatial order, a color, a size, a shape, an order, a relative proximity, a relative boldness, and a relative texture.