Reviewers’ assertions of expertise in online reviews

Abstract

In online reviews of products and services, laypeople (as opposed to professional writers like movie reviewers who write for newspapers) write and post their evaluations of products on Websites like Epinions.com. To establish credibility, online reviewers assert expertise. This paper describes 10 types of assertions that online reviewers used to tell readers about their expertise and the method used to establish the reliability of those types. These 10 types of expertise assertions, will facilitate further research on online reviews.