However, prior work has not looked at how the textual
characteristics of a review affect sales. Our hypothesis is that
the text of product reviews affects sales even after taking
into consideration the numerical information such as review
valence and volume. Intuitively, reviews of reasonable length,
that are easy to read, and lack spelling and grammar errors
should be, all else being equal, more helpful and influential
compared to other reviews that are difficult to read and have
errors. Reviewers also write “subjective opinions” that portray
reviewers’ emotions about product features or more “objective
statements” that portray factual data about product features,
or a mix of both.