Purpose of the study:

This study aims to determine the effect of query expansion on the scientific texts retrieval in Persian.

The present study was conducted using quasi-experimental method. The results are the obtained by analyzing 40 initial and expanded queries of postgraduate students in the Faculty of Management, University of Tehran. Query expansion was performed manually using primary research results.

Query expansion of Persian scientific texts leads to an increase in the number of related retrieved documents, as well as the comprehensiveness and accuracy of retrieving scientific data in Elmnet search engine, which as a result, improves the overall performance of information retrieval.

Nowadays, automatic query expansion is on the agenda of databases. Given that Persian databases are not fully developed, and the existence of specific problems of writing in Persian language, information literacy training and the method of defining and expressing information requirements and providing them to the information retrieval systems, can have significant impact for postgraduate students and researchers, to retrieve the required information and save them time and money.