Abstract: A system and methods of performing searches within a universe of preexisting documents to extract a subset of relevant documents is disclosed. The user selects search terms or key words, and an application program performs a search of the universe of documents, compiles a subset or collection of documents based upon the search terms or keywords selected, and presents the resulting collection of documents to the user. An abstract marker such as a color highlighter, e.g. a color overlayed upon the key words such that the key word is visible through the colored portion, is associated with the keywords or criterion within a document. A collection of documents is presented as a group of second abstract markers, such as a pie chart, with colored segments representing keywords such that the proportion of instances of a keyword corresponds to the relative size of a segment within the pie chart.

Abstract: A system and methods of performing searches within a universe of preexisting documents to extract a subset of relevant documents is disclosed. The user selects search terms or key words, and an application program performs a search of the universe of documents, compiles a subset or collection of documents based upon the search terms or keywords selected, and presents the resulting collection of documents to the user. An abstract marker such as a color highlighter, e.g. a color overlayed upon the key words such that the key word is visible through the colored portion, is associated with the keywords or criterion within a document. A collection of documents is presented as a group of second abstract markers, such as a pie chart, with colored segments representing keywords such that the proportion of instances of a keyword corresponds to the relative size of a segment within the pie chart.