Relativity's Suppress Duplicate Documents setting shows why Prioritized Review should be No and Coverage Review should be Yes.

Outline

• Hook: Duplicates in big document sets are a quiet headache—and the right setting can either amplify confusion or clear the air.

• What the Suppress Duplicate Documents option does, in plain language.

• The two review flavors in Relativity: Prioritized Review vs Coverage Review, and why they aim at different goals.

• The official recommendation in plain terms:

• Prioritized Review: Do not suppress duplicates.

• Coverage Review: Suppress duplicates.

• Why this split makes sense: visibility for critical decisions vs efficiency and sampling accuracy.

• What this looks like in practice: quick setup tips, quick checks, and a few caveats.

• Common pitfalls and how to avoid them.

• Wrap-up: the practical takeaway and how it supports thoughtful, informed review.

Suppressing duplicates, with a practical twist

Let’s start with the obvious: in any large document collection, duplicates aren’t rare. They’re the wallpaper. You’ll see the same memo, the same email thread, the same attachment popping up again and again. It’s not just clutter; it can skew the sense of what’s truly present in the set. So how should a reviewer handle that?

Relativity gives you a setting called Suppress Duplicate Documents. It’s about what you want to see—and what you don’t. The idea is simple: if you suppress duplicates, you’re showing fewer items, cutting noise. If you don’t suppress duplicates, you’re showing every appearance of every document, ensuring you don’t miss contextual repeats that might carry nuances or reasoning across instances. The effect on the reviewer’s mental model can be substantial.

Two different review intents, two different defaults

Here’s where the nuance comes in. Relativity distinguishes between two common review goals:

• Prioritized Review: Focused, time-sensitive decisions. You want a window into the full contextual content, so you can gauge the importance and meaning of documents as they appear in different forms. The emphasis is on thoroughness and context. You don’t want to miss a thread of meaning that shows up only when you consider all instances together.

• Coverage Review: Broad, representative sampling. The goal is to get a scalable read on the document universe, ensuring that the sampling you review reflects the set’s overall characteristics without getting bogged down by duplicates that don’t add new information.

That difference matters, because the right default for one mode would blunt the usefulness of the other. It’s not about being clever or strict; it’s about aligning the viewing experience with the task at hand.

Relativity’s recommended settings, plain and practical

• Prioritized Review: No for Suppress Duplicate Documents

• Why this makes sense: In high-stakes, time-sensitive decisions, you want reviewers to see every instance of a document. Duplicates can carry contextual shifts—like different email threads, or different attachments tied to the same subject. Seeing all occurrences helps ensure that no nuance slips through the cracks. It keeps the chain of reasoning visible. If a document’s relevance depends on its multiple appearances, you want them all on the table.

• Coverage Review: Yes for Suppress Duplicate Documents

• Why this makes sense: When the aim is to gauge the overall character of the collection, duplicates can distort perception. Seeing every copy can make a subset feel larger than it is, and patterns may look more pronounced simply because a single document shows up repeatedly. Suppressing duplicates helps maintain a clean, representative sample so reviewers aren’t pulled into chasing redundant content. The focus stays on variety, coverage, and accurate sampling rather than on volume.

A practical way to think about it

Imagine you’re assessing a corporate memo that exists in several threads and with a few attachments. In Prioritized Review, you’d want to map how the memo travels—who forwards it, how replies evolve, what attachments show up across threads. That means every appearance matters. In Coverage Review, you’re building a snapshot of the document world. Do you have enough variety in topics, writers, or jurisdictions? Duplicates don’t help that assessment; they can create a mirage of depth where there’s actually redundancy.

How this translates to day-to-day Relativity use

• For Prioritized Review, keep the suppress duplicates option off (so duplicates appear).

• For Coverage Review, turn suppress duplicates on (so duplicates are filtered out in the view).

• When in doubt, consider the task at hand: is the aim to understand a single thread of thought, or to understand the makeup of the whole set?

A few tips to keep things moving smoothly

• Quick checks: If you’re in Prioritized Review and you notice a lot of identical items popping up, that may reflect a real concentration of material around a topic. It’s a signal, not a nuisance. If you’re in Coverage Review and you see many non-substantive duplicates, you’re saving time and mental energy by focusing on unique content.

• Use the right views: Relativity has different ways to surface duplicates. In Prioritized Review, you can trace how a document appears across threads. In Coverage Review, a clean, non-duplicated view helps you spot gaps and patterns more clearly.

• Context matters: Duplicates aren’t inherently good or bad. They’re a tool. The setting should fit the task, not the other way around.

• Don’t assume one size fits all: Some teams switch modes depending on the phase of a project or the type of data. A hybrid approach isn’t unusual—start with one mode, then adjust as you gather insights.

A few real-world implications

• Efficiency versus completeness

• Suppressing duplicates in Coverage Review speeds up decision-making by reducing noise. You get a clearer read on what’s genuinely present in the set.

• Keeping duplicates in Prioritized Review preserves depth and continuity, which is critical when reviewers need to reconstruct chains of communication, or when multiple copies carry slightly different metadata or attachments.

• Sampling quality

• In Coverage Review, a representative sample matters. Suppressing duplicates helps ensure your sample isn’t overrepresented by the same document in many guises.

• In Prioritized Review, representative sampling is still important, but you’re prioritizing narrative integrity and context over streamlined counts.

• Contextual completeness

• Overlooked nuances can slip in when duplicates are hidden. In contexts where context is king, show the full trail of a document’s appearances.

Potential pitfalls and how to sidestep them

• Mistaking duplicates for new content

• In Prioritized Review, it’s tempting to treat each appearance as a fresh find. Remind yourself: duplicates carry context, not necessarily new facts. Use your eyes for how the document’s presence changes meaning.

• Over-filtering in Sampling

• In Coverage Review, hiding duplicates is a smart move, but don’t filter so aggressively that you miss genuine patterns that only emerge when you compare across duplicates.

• Inconsistent settings across teams

• If multiple teams work on the same project, ensure everyone understands the current mode and rationale. A drift in settings can lead to misinterpretation of results.

Putting it simply: what you gain with the right setting

• Prioritized Review with duplicates visible

• You gain context, continuity, and a fuller understanding of how a document behaves across threads or across versions.

• You’re not risking missing a linkage or nuance because a single copy doesn’t tell the whole story.

• Coverage Review with duplicates suppressed

• You gain clarity about the true makeup of the set.

• You reduce cognitive load, making it easier to spot gaps, trends, and representative content without drowning in repetition.

The bottom line

Relativity’s approach to Suppress Duplicate Documents is a thoughtful calibration, not a rigid rule. It recognizes that review work isn’t one-size-fits-all. By keeping duplicates visible during Prioritized Review, you preserve the richness of context needed for critical decisions. By suppressing duplicates during Coverage Review, you protect the integrity of sampling and learnings drawn from the broader set.

If you’re guiding a team through this, a good habit is to declare your mode up front and explain why. A quick note in your workflow about “we’re in Prioritized Review now, so duplicates stay visible” can save a lot of back-and-forth later. Then, when the project shifts to a broader sampling phase, flip the switch to suppress duplicates and keep the focus tight and efficient.

Relativity is built to be flexible, almost like a seasoned translator who knows when to preserve the original cadence and when to smooth out the noise for clarity. The Suppress Duplicate Documents setting is part of that balance. It’s not about clever tricks or shortcuts; it’s about aligning the viewing experience with the task at hand—helping reviewers see what matters, when it matters, in the way it matters most.

If you’re exploring these settings for your own work, take a moment to picture what your end goal looks like. Do you need the full, unvarnished tapestry of how a document travels through conversations? Or do you want a crisp, representative snapshot of the collection to guide strategic decisions? The answer will guide your choice, and it will keep your review steady, efficient, and human at heart.