Working with QWICK

This document will give you a brief introduction to working with QWICK. It will briefly describe the main components of its user interface and will then explain several important concepts that you need to know in order to work effectively with QWICK.

How to work with QWICK

QWICK's user interface is made up of a panel with three tabs. These tabs are, in order, Corpus, Concordance, and Collocation. This is the natural sequence of steps when working with QWICK: first you select the corpus data you want to work with, then you query the corpus material in order to get a set of concordance lines, and finally you can perform statistical calculations on this set to get a table of collocations.

Before we look in detail at each tab, there are some generic functions which are available on every tab.

The Toolbar

The other important component of the user interface is visible in the top right hand corner: the toolbar. This toolbar always stays visible and will not change. It provides a standard set of functions for each tab. If a function is not available for a given pane, the respective button on the toolbar will be greyed out.

LOAD

The load button enables you to retrieve data previously saved in machine- readable format, so that you may continue working with it. You will be presented with a list of available corpus or collocation files, from which you select the one you want. You will only see the files corresponding to the tab you are currently viewing; you cannot load corpus files from the collocation tab or vice versa.

SAVE

The save button gives you the option of saving the result of your work in a choice of up to three formats.

PRINT

If you want to take your results away on paper you can print them using the print button. Alternatively you can save them as html or plain text with the save option above and print them out using a word processor or include them into your own documents.

SORT

This button presents a dialogue box where you need to set two parameters in order to define your sort key.

HELP

The help button brings up a window with online help text. This will give you a brief summary of your options, depending which tab you are currently on.

EXIT

The exit button exits QWICK.

Now we'll look at the particular options available on each tab.

  1. The Corpus Tab
  2. The Concordance Tab
  3. The Collocation Tab

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