CourseRetrieval-Augmented Generation: The Complete Course · Module 7: Query Understanding and Transformation · part 49 of 95
Part 49 · Module 7: Query Understanding and Transformation

Lesson 1: Rewriting what customers type into what documents say

34 min read·13 Oct 2026
Module 7 · Lesson 1 · About 75 minutes · Needs: Module 6 Lesson 2 (hybrid search, the weighted sum at alpha 0.8) and the course setup in course-guide/02

The situation

On Friday 9 October Ellie Shaw is back in the chat. Her X200 stopped with E7, the assistant told her to unplug it for 20 minutes, and she replies: "I did that last month too. Is it covered?"

Module 6's search receives exactly those words. It has no idea that "it" is a motor fault on an X200, so the community forum post carrying an injected instruction comes first. Grace's verdict: "The search got her words, not her question." This lesson fixes the question before it is searched. The Hollin data is simulated.

ELLIE: "IS IT COVERED?" IN MODULE 6 SEARCH as typed 1 frm-x200-tips 2 pol-warranty-2026 3 pol-warranty-2024 standalone question 1 man-x200-errors 2 pol-warranty-2026 3 pol-warranty-2024
Searched as typed, Ellie's message puts the injected forum post first (red: danger); the standalone question replaces it with the X200 error page (blue), with the current terms (green: the right document) second either way.

The rest of this course is yours to keep

This course is bought on its own, once, and stays readable afterwards, including the parts added to it later.