System and method for generating a narrative summary

Abstract

A method and system for automatically generating a self-updating naturally-reading narrative product summary including assertions about a selected product. In one embodiment, the system and method includes evaluating an existing narrative product summary, comparing an existing attribute name, attribute value, attribute unit, and assertion model, respectively, to a current attribute name, attribute value, attribute unit, and assertion model to determine if one of the comparisons shows a change. The system and method further determines a new attribute associated with the selected product, selects an alternative product, retrieves a new assertion model with assertions that describe the selected product and identify an alternative product in a natural manner. The system and method then generates a naturally-reading narrative product summary by combining the new attribute with the new retrieved assertion model, and by combining the selected alternative product with another retrieved assertion model to recommend the selected alternative product in the narrative.

The claimed invention is: 
     
         1 . A method implemented by one or more computing devices for generating a naturally reading narrative summary including at least one assertion describing the state of an item, the method comprising:
 receiving, by at least one of the one or more computing devices, data from a database, the data being associated with the item;   retrieve an assertion model, the assertion model including at least one assertion template having a data field;   filling the data field of the assertion template based on the data received from the database to thereby generate an assertion describing the state of the item; and   publishing a narrative based on the assertion.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the assertion template includes a grammatical pattern and a field name representing the data field. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the item is an activity. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the item is a manufactured product. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 2 , further comprising generating secondary data based on the data received from the database and wherein said filling step comprises filling the data field of the assertion template with the secondary data. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the data is a characteristic of the item. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the assertion template includes a connotation indicator and wherein the publishing step comprises placing the assertion into a narrative based on the connotation.