In practice 3

This chapter is used as the next stage after "in practice 2". It is not a good idea to request a summary of the text, because the programme is not yet capable of selecting the important parts. It will be better to have the programme go through the whole chapter and "understand" it all. Then we can ask questions in a similar, or in fact the same, way that we did in "in practice 2".

Progress can again be guided by the questions we ask, but never (eventually) by knowledge we do not get from the computer's answers.

There should be a setting to specify the amount of detail the computer supplies in its answers - simple answer in a few words, or further detail ("along the path"), or reasons ("because"), or "what happened then", etc.

So, our approach:

1. a human being (later the computer) should read through the entire chapter.

2. the human being (later the computer) asks a number of simple questions.

3. the human being (later the computer) will answer the questions by referring to the text that has been read, that is, we will select and computerise those portions of the work that provide answers to those questions

4. and this may or may not raise further questions or prompt comments (as an option "short answers or long answers")

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Q: the principal characters - what are their names and ages?

A: BOBBY JONES teed up his ball

He was an amiable-looking young man of ABOUT EIGHT AND TWENTY.

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A: DR. THOMAS was A MIDDLE-AGED MAN with grey hair and a red cheerful face.

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Q: Where are they?

A: The answer is not yet definite, but possibly they are on a golf-course in

MARCHBOLT - A SMALL SEASIDE TOWN ON THE COAST OF WALES

It will not become definite (change from possible to definite) until chapter three.

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Q: What are they doing?

A: the ball fly down the fairway straight and true, rising as it went and soaring over the bunker to land within an easy mashie shot of the fourteenth green - they are PLAYING GOLF

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Q: which of them is the better player?

A: Dr. Thomas played short straight shots down the middle, and usually beat more brilliant but more erratic players.

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Q: what interrupts their game?

A: Some forty feet below was a dark heap of something that looked like old clothes.

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