Previous research has established that punctuation can be used to communicate nuances of meaning in online writing (McAndrew & De Jonge, 2011). Punctuation, considered a computer mediated communication (CMC) cue, expresses tone and emotion and disambiguates an author's intention (Vandergriff, 2013). Quotation marks as CMC cues can serve pragmatic functions and have been understudied. Some of these functions have been generally described (Predelli, 2003). However, no corpus study has specifically focused on the pragmatic uses of quotations in online text. Consumer reviews, a genre of online text, can directly impact business profits and influence customers' purchasing decisions (Floyd, Freling, Alhoqail, Cho & Freling, 2014). Businesses are investing in sentiment analysis to gauge their target market's opinions (Salehan & Kim, 2016). Sentiment analysis is the computerized appraisal of a text to determine whether its author is expressing a positive or negative opinion (Novak, Smailovic, Sluban & Mozetic, 2015). Sentiment analysis programs are still limited and could be improved in accuracy. Most programs rely on lexicons of words given a pre-determined polarity value (positive or negative) out of context (Novak et al., 2015). However, context is crucial to communication, and sentiment analysis programs could incorporate a better variety of contextual linguistic features to improve their accuracy. Quotations used for pragmatic communication is such a feature. This study discovered seven pragmatic quotation uses in a 2014 Yelp review corpus: Collective Knowledge, Non-standard, Grammatical, Non-literal, Narrative, Idiolect, and Emphasis. An ANOVA and Tukey HSD test were performed, and the results were significant. Pragmatic category accounted for 15% of the variance in review star rating. The Collective Knowledge category and the Narrative and Non-literal categories were significantly different from each other. The Collective Knowledge category showed a correlation with positive sentiment, while the Narrative and Non-literal categories displayed a correlation with negative sentiment. These three categories are likely present in several types of online text, making them valuable for further sentiment analysis research. If these pragmatic patterns could be detected automatically, they could be used in sentiment algorithms to give a more accurate picture of author opinion.

The goal of this essay was to study if the way gaming review sites presented their review evaluation has any influences the level of product involvement in the users it attracts. The assumption we did during the essay was that there was a connection between user’s level of product involvement and the quality of the community. To test this assumption we started out by performing observations on the comment sections in three gaming news sites which varied in their method for evaluating games. The result of these observations showed a significantly higher community quality in one of the websites. To see if this had any connection to the level of product involvement in the users and their preferences regarding evaluation method in reviews we distributed a questionnaire in gaming forums. The overall result of this essay showed that the review site which didn’t show a number in its scoring had the higher community quality but no connections could be found between this and level of involvement users had regarding gaming.

As software systems grow in size they will also grow in complexity. If the increased complexity is not managed the system will be increasingly difficult to maintain. The effect of unmaintainable software is even more distinct when using a agile development process. By increasing the maintainability of the system these problems will be dealt with and the system can be extended with sustained efficiency. This thesis will evaluate the development process of a modern, agile company in order to find changes that will promote increased maintainability. The result is an modified process that will increase the maintainability with the smallest possible overhead for the development organisation. The result is based on earlier studies of development technologies that have proven to increase the maintainability. The implementation of these technologies are adjusted to fit the development team, and some of the technologies that are not suitable for the team are rejected.

This thesis aims to look closer upon how hotels manage electronic Word of Mouth and suggests potential strategies. Focus is being put on online guest reviews and the researchintends to study the impact of online reviews in the hospitality industry as well as defining the possibilities and challenges. The aim is not to make generalizations for the entire industry, but to be a suggestion for how to manage online reviews. Case studies have been performed withsix different hotels with different characteristics, to be able to answer the research questions. In order to provide an understanding of the topic, theories concerning e-Word of Mouth marketing, has been chosen. The traditional Word of Mouth and electronic Word of Mouth isdefined and the possibilities/challenges are explained. Theories on management of online reviews are also presented in the thesis. The empirical research has shown that e-Word of Mouth is still a new phenomenon in the hospitality industry. However most respondents agree on the influence of online recommendations which make it important to monitor and track them. The main possibility of managing online reviews is the chance of increased revenues and the ability to create brand awareness. It helps hotels to understand the needs of their customers. However challenges of sincerity and the big amount of information that is needed to control, are problematic. The research has shown that only few respondents work actively with some type of e-Word of Mouth. These results have provided the thesis with suggestions on management of online reviews.

Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 47-06, page: 3373. Advisers: Kelly Volcik; Sarah Baraniuk. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.N.(Clinical))--Victoria University of Wellington, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Alberta, 2010. / A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Clinical Epidemiology, Department of Public Health Sciences. Title from pdf file main screen (viewed on February 23, 2010). Includes bibliographical references.

Background: To understand the consumers’ motivation to write online reviews is of importance, especially for companies since a large number of reviews have a positive influence on sales. Previous research has been done regarding what motivate consumers to provide user generated content, online word of mouth and also, to some extent, online reviews. However, these studies have primarily been adopted in a quantitative manner. To explore, from customers’ own perspective, the motivation to write online reviews is therefore valuable to add depth to the existing literature. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore customers’ motivation to write online reviews. Research question: What factors motivate customers to write online reviews? Methodology: The design of the research is a case study where the data collection method was conducted by semi-structured interviews. Conclusion: The result of this study shows that customers’ motivation to write online reviews is due to a variety of situations. The customers are motivated to write to enhance their selfimage, helping both customers and companies, and in some situations to even harm companies. Also, customers were motivated to write to obtain economical incentives. The features of the platform are important, where easiness and the opportunity to be anonymous were preferred.

Due to the popularity of social media and an increase in the engagement of social care, traditional word-of-mouth communications has been replaced by electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM). Facebook, the most popular website in the United States, is home to nearly 18 million brand or business pages and may be accessed by social media-users aiming to engage in social care, which is customer service via social media. Extending existing research, this study employed in-depth interviews to determine whether or not social media-users are affected by the feedback of other users on restaurants' Facebook pages. The results of this study suggest that Facebook is being used as a tool to attain user feedback regarding restaurants and is perceived as a credible tool. The results also suggest that social media-users are mainly affected by others' user feedback when they are researching a restaurant they have not yet experienced. Finally, the findings of this study suggest that restaurants using Facebook should respond to all types of user feedback, since this practice may result in providing social media-users with a more positive perception of the restaurant.

Konsumenter använder och förlitar sig i allt större utsträckning på andras åsikter som lagtsupp på recensionssidor på nätet. Nyligen har dock skandaler uppmärksammat förekomsten avmanipulation av recensioner vilket lett till att recensionssajters trovärdighet kan ifrågasättas.Tidigare forskning har också gett tvetydiga svar på huruvida folk litar på recensioner ellerinte.Att utforska det här ämnet är viktigt eftersom marknadsförare måste förstå sig påkonsumenters förtroende för onlinerecensioner då dessa kan användas som ett kraftfulltmarknadsföringsverktyg och som ett nytt element i marknadsföringsmixen. Den här studiensyftar till att utforska konsumenters förtroende för onlinerecensioner genom att undersökavarför man litar på recensioner och vad som gör en onlinerecension pålitlig. Genomanvändandet av en modifierad version av Shannon och Weavers kommunikationsmodell, kanen recension struktureras kring elementen meddelande, sändare, mottagare, kanal ochåterkoppling. Den här studien implementerar en kvalitativ metod där semistruktureradeintervjuer använts för att få en djupare förståelse för intervjuobjektens känslor och tankar.Studiens resultat indikerar att konsumenter inte litar på individuella recensioner, utan snararepå systemet med onlinerecensioner i sin helhet; antalet recensioner nämndes som den mestinflytelserika faktorn för att skapa tillit. Studien visar också att den som läser recensionerframförallt använder meddelandet för att avgöra om en recension är pålitlig eller inte. Pågrund av avsaknaden av information om personen som skriver recensionen är meddelandetdet enda läsaren verkligen kan utvärdera. / Increasingly, consumers are using and relying on the opinions of others posted on onlinereview sites. However, recent scandals has brought attention to the existence of reviewmanipulation and questioned the credibility of online review sites. Furthermore, previousresearch has shown conflicting findings on whether or not consumers trust online reviews.Exploring these matters becomes important since marketers need to be able to understandconsumer trust in online reviews as it then can be used as a powerful marketing tool and as anew element of the marketing communication mix. The aim of this study is to exploreconsumer trust in online reviews by investigating why people trust online reviews, and whatmakes an online review trustworthy. This is accomplished using a modified version of theShannon and Weaver communication model which is structured around the elementsmessage, sender, receiver, channel and feedback. The study employs a qualitative methodusing semi-structured interviews in order to gain a deeper understanding of the thoughts andfeelings of the interviewees. The findings indicate that consumers do not put their trust inindividual reviews, but in the online review system as a whole; the number of reviews postedwas mentioned as the most influential factor for creating trust. The study shows that readersof reviews primarily use the message to determine whether a review is trustworthy or not.Because of the lack of information about the person writing the online review, it is the onlything the reader can truly evaluate.