1. A method comprising: receiving a user-defined parameter for named entity recognition, wherein the user-defined parameter comprises a beginning position and one of a length or an ending position to define a section of a written work on which the named entity recognition is to be performed, wherein an individual position or the length are measured in one of chapters, pages, paragraphs, or words; recognizing, based at least in part on the user-defined parameter, one or more textual strings within the section of the written work, wherein a textual string of the one or more textual strings is associated with a named entity of a plurality of named entities within the portion of the written work; calculating, by one or more hardware processors, a significance value based at least in part on a number of the one or more textual strings; selecting a primary textual string from the one or more textual strings; and providing an ordered list of at least a portion of the plurality of named entities, wherein a position of the primary textual string within the ordered list is based at least in part on the significance value.