1. An information processing apparatus comprising: an acquiring unit that acquires, for a plurality of documents, candidates for elements representing characteristics of each of the plurality of documents; an extraction unit that extracts, from the candidates acquired by the acquiring unit, common elements common to two or more of the plurality of documents; and a selection unit that extracts, from the plurality of documents, a document including two or more common elements among the common elements, and determines the two or more common elements included in the extracted document to be elements representing characteristics of the document.