# Define Initial Phrases and Keywords

To be effective, a topic must be well-defined. That is, since people use a variety of different words to express the same idea, you should try to include as wide a range of alternative words as possible.

In many cases, topics can benefit from fine-tuning after they have been applied to interactions and the call-auditing process takes place.

### Before you begin

Create an Empty Topic

### Procedure

1. Make a list of phrases and keywords that you believe represent your business issue.
2. Adhere to the following best practices during this process:
   - Business Problem: Before you begin listing phrases, define the data you want to collect in 3-4 sentences. Think about the intent that the phrases you are collecting should reflect, and be as specific as possible.
   - Terms: List as many common phrases as you can that are frequently used to express the intent. Include as many variations of the phrases as you can.
   - Term Length: Longer phrases are easier for SpeechMiner to identify than shorter phrases, so try to use phrases that include at least 4-6 words and at least 20 characters. Phrases can contain up to 100 characters. As a rule, the longer the phrase, the more accurately it will be identified by SpeechMiner. However, fewer events are found for longer phrases. Conversely, the shorter the phrase, the more events will be found, but the accuracy will be lower.
   - Synonyms: Try to think of synonyms for words that appear in the phrases, and list variations of the phrases by using the synonyms in place of the original word. For example, if you are looking for conversations in which closing an account is discussed, list all words with the verbs "cancel" and “close”:
     - "want to cancel my account"
     - "want to close my account"
     - "need to close my account"
     - “need to cancel my account”
   - Short Words: Remove short words from the beginnings of phrases whenever possible. For example, instead of "I want to reduce the rate," use "want to reduce the rate."
   - Keywords: When you select a keyword in a phrase, you give it extra weight so that SpeechMiner specifically looks for that word when processing interactions. If no keyword is selected for a phrase, SMART automatically marks the longest word in the phrase as the keyword. For example, if you do not select a keyword in the phrase “I already called to cancel my account”, SMART automatically selects the word "already" as the keyword. Selecting a keyword for each phrase ensures that the correct keyword is selected. Thus, in the example above, you should select “cancel” as the keyword. Note that when a keyword is selected for a phrase, it is automatically applied to the entire topic. Do not select the same keyword for another topic.
   - Mispronunciation: When you want to add a term that may have different pronunciations, it is recommended to insert the term's pronunciation into the language dictionary found in the Grammars folder (for example, utopy_BRAZIL_PORTUGUESE_dictionary_const.xml).
   Since Nuance does not contain all terms in its dictionary (for example, some acronyms), phonetic transcription may be poor for specific terms that are not manually inserted.
   For example, "IFA" can be pronounced "aYeFeY" and "eefa", but Nuance will only transcribe "eefa".
   To add a pronunciation, a new field should be added to the language dictionary .xml file.
   For example, if we want IFA to be pronounced "aYeFeY" and not "eefa", the following should be added to the dictionary file:
   <entry key=" IFA ">
   <definition value=" aYeFeY " />
   </entry>
   In general, only one keyword should be selected per phrase; if two words always appear together, like "credit card", you can select them both as the keyword.

### What to do next

Add Topic Phrases

#### Related Topics

SMART Overview
SMART Hierarchy