A Mathematical Theory of Man-Machine Text Editing

A mathematical representation of text editing tasks and a model of the implementation of such tasks by man-machine systems is introduced. The model assumes an abstract system that is characterized by a set of parameters such as insert rate, delete rate, etc. This model is used to derive the optimal operation strategy for a system and the expected editing rate as a function of the document's length and the parameters describing the work load and the system. Based on these results, some criteria are suggested for evaluating alternative text editing systems and for determining tradeoffs involved in designing such systems.