  Extracting knowledge from unlabeled texts using machine learning algorithms
can be complex. Document categorization and information retrieval are two
applications that may benefit from unsupervised learning (e.g., text clustering
and topic modeling), including exploratory data analysis. However, the
unsupervised learning paradigm poses reproducibility issues. The initialization
can lead to variability depending on the machine learning algorithm.
Furthermore, the distortions can be misleading when regarding cluster geometry.
Amongst the causes, the presence of outliers and anomalies can be a determining
factor. Despite the relevance of initialization and outlier issues for text
clustering and topic modeling, the authors did not find an in-depth analysis of
them. This survey provides a systematic literature review (2011-2022) of these
subareas and proposes a common terminology since similar procedures have
different terms. The authors describe research opportunities, trends, and open
issues. The appendices summarize the theoretical background of the text
vectorization, the factorization, and the clustering algorithms that are
directly or indirectly related to the reviewed works.

Machine Learning;Computation and Language;Information Retrieval;Machine Learning