Product-Centered Language Style in Chinese Women Online Reviews

The relationship of language style and online review has drawn increasing academic attention recently as it can provide customers with a guide to make the purchase. Extant research attaches importance to the language style that is presented in the use of function words, instead of product-related content words. This study aimed to examine the language style generated by customers’ comments relating to the product based on content words, that is, product-centered language style (PCLS). We built a corpus of Chinese women clothes online reviews to explore the general picture and distinct features of PCLS and the distinct feature of PCLS. A content-word-centered Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) in terms of product performance is established. PCLS is calculated based on the language style matching (LSM) algorithm. Our results show that the PCLS in women clothes online review is featured by diverse and polarized language styles among three groups of women clothes buyers, and the prioritized arrangement of words of importance contributes to the PCLS. The findings benefit the women clothes industry in which it can help companies quickly find the distinctive and the transition of PCLS and offer an approach for companies to indiscriminately look into the significance of the product category from the linguistic perspective, which can help with product sale strategy and product design.

Refereeing and the single author

The reported refereeing times taken from submission to acceptance for psychology journal articles were assessed in three separate studies, and the results then pooled. The pooled data suggested (i) that the papers of single authors were refereed faster than were those of pairs or larger groups, and (ii) that the papers of single authors that contained portions that had previously been delivered at conferences were refereed fastest of all. Some limitations of these studies that might have a bearing on these conclusions are considered.

Review of James Hartley’s research on structured abstracts

Structured abstracts have been employed in biomedical journals for more than 20 years. Professor James Hartley in the School of Psychology, Keele University, UK has published over 25 research papers and conducted systematic studies on structured abstracts. This paper reviews this research from five perspectives: the advantages of structured abstracts over traditional ones, the typographic layout of structured abstracts, the content of structure abstracts, the application of structured abstracts to medical, non-medical and social science journals, and evaluating the quality of structured abstracts. Our aim is to achieve a fuller understanding of what is known about structured abstracts in this field by summarizing James Hartley’s research.