About CiteQuest

CiteQuest is an academic search engine built as part of the Text Technologies for Data Science course at the University of Edinburgh. It enables researchers to discover papers through keyword search, wildcard pattern matching, boolean operators, and filtering by author, year, and open access status.

Our system features citation-aware ranking, index compression, and a clean interface inspired by OpenAlex.

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Advanced Search

Powerful search capabilities with wildcard pattern matching, boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), and phrase matching to find exactly what you're looking for.

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Smart Filtering

Filter search results by author name, publication year range, and open access availability to refine your searches.

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Index Compression

Efficient indexing with compression techniques enabling fast search across large datasets of academic papers.

Technology & Features

  • Inverted index with positional information for efficient retrieval
  • Variable byte encoding for index compression
  • BM25 ranking algorithm enhanced with citation weighting
  • Wildcard search supporting prefix, suffix, and infix patterns
  • Boolean query processing with AND, OR, and NOT operators
  • Responsive web interface with modern design principles

Built as part of the Text Technologies for Data Science course at the University of Edinburgh.