This document discusses the "engineering paradigm" in information retrieval (IR) which views IR as an applied engineering problem that focuses on the physical and statistical properties of documents and queries, rather than the semantic meaning. It references several influential papers and authors in the field who took this approach, including Shannon, Luhn, Rittel & Webber, and Patrick Wilson, emphasizing analysis of textual properties rather than meanings of words or concepts.

1. The Engineering
“
Paradigm in IR

5. George Boole
(1815-1864)

8. “Frequently the messages have
meaning; that is they refer to or
are correlated according to
some system with certain
physical or conceptual entities.
These semantic aspects
of communication are
irrelevant to the
engineering problem.”
Shannon, The Mathematical Theory of
Communication (1948)

9. “As pointed out earlier, the
method to be developed here
is a probabilistic one based on
the physical properties of
written texts.
No consideration is to
“
be given to the meaning
of words or the
arguments expressed
by word combinations.”
Luhn, The Automatic Creation of
Literature Abstracts (1958)

10. “Based in modern science, each
of the professions has been
conceived as the medium
through which the knowledge
of science is applied.
In effect, each
“
profession has been
seen as a subset of
engineering.”
Rittel & Webber, Dilemmas in a
General Theory of Planning (1973)

11. “The notion of the
“
subject of a writing
is indeterminate.”
Patrick Wilson,
1968