1. A method of searching a collection of electronic documents comprising: using a synonym ring to generate a set of standardized paragraph terms for paragraphs in electronic documents in the collection, wherein each set of standardized paragraph terms is associated with an individual paragraph; replacing a set of synonymous terms within a paragraph with the set of standardized paragraph terms; associating term weight values with paragraph terms in the sets of standardized paragraph terms, wherein each term weight value is associated with an individual paragraph term; generating a set of search terms in response to receipt of a search query, wherein the search terms are based at least in part on a query string of the search query; replacing the search query with the set of standardized paragraph terms; comparing the set of search terms with the sets of paragraph terms; generating a paragraph score for the paragraphs using the term weight values of the standardized paragraph terms that match one or more of the search terms, wherein each paragraph score is associated with an individual paragraph; generating an overall document score for the electronic documents by combining the paragraph scores of the paragraphs in the electronic documents, wherein each overall document score is associated with an individual electronic document; determining, by a processor, a set of matching documents from the electronic documents associated with the collection based at least in part on the generated overall document scores, wherein the electronic documents within the set of matching documents are sorted by overall document score; and providing the set of matching documents for display.